Conversion
by Lunan
Summary: From not so humble beginnings to becoming a force to shape the fate of many worlds. Many changes undergone and lessons learned, it's Prowl, my way. Multiverse crossovers and original twists: AU.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Birth

It was a time of celebration in Praxus, City of Lights and the mecca of culture of Cybertron. A total of twenty families were all expecting new life to be born this vorn, including the Emirate's, the Lord of Praxus. The leader of Praxis's own mate was carrying their first sparkling, and the noble mech couldn't be happier.

Swiftbright, Emirate's mate, looked positively radiant in the final stages of carrying. Her silver and white frame practically glowed in her happiness and anticipation to hold her first sparkling for the first time. Even given the risks posed to her for carrying could not damper her joy.

Emirate Riftguard, a mech known for being a greatly logical and stoic individual when not engaged in combat, was actually giddy with excitement. He knew nothing about the sparkling's traits, whether it would be a femme, graceful and delicate like her mother or a mech, a strong warrior like his father. He quivered in anticipation whenever the thought crossed his processor of teaching a youngling double of himself the ways of leadership and battle, he was praying fervently to Primus for such an outcome.

Both proudly expecting parents waited each day as the vorn drew on, watching each newborn sparkling brought before the Emirate until they were the last.

Swiftbright grew more and more worried as each orn passed and still she had not gone into labor. Looking to her mate, she held her hand over her distended abdomen in fear for the sparkling.

"Oh Em, I'm so worried." she said softly. "The little one has been so still these past joors."

Emirate took her into his arms gently. "These things take time my love, like the medic said."

"I would like to get a second opinion darling." Swiftbright said, her soft blue optics deepening. "Even carrying a sparkling to full frame, I do not recall any medic saying it would take _this _long."

Emirate relented, and the next orn he requested the premier physician called Ratchet to attend to his mate. The yellow-green prodigy medic took one glance at Swiftbright and had a prognosis.

"You're overdue." he said simply, a grave expression crossing his faceplates. "You may need to induce labor or the sparkling may have to be birthed surgically, neither option would be pleasant for you or the little one."

That wasn't what she wanted to hear, but fortunately, as Ratchet gave the femme a more thorough exam, the first pangs of labor finally hit. Under Ratchet's care, she gave birth to a fully framed little mech, and the reason for the great length of the gestation cycle became obvious.

"Congratulations lord Emirate." Ratchet said as he cleaned the sparkling off gently, mindful of limp sensory wings. "It's a mech."

Emirate stared wide opticed at his sparkling. "Wings? But how?"

Neither father or mother had sensory wings, nor did any of their own creators. Such an occurrence was extremely rare to the point of ominous. Sensory wings were an optional frame modification that most mechs that had them were shelled with, not born. The sheer amount of sensory network microfibers made wings both prized and highly impractical in some instances.

Swiftbright took her sparkling in her arms for the first time with a sob of joy, running a gentle fingertip over the tiny crimson chevron and white frame, watching him stir, but not utter a sound. "Em, he's beautiful."

Stunned as he was, the mech couldn't help but agree. Sure, he'd wanted a strong little mech that would take after him in every way, but this sparkling stole his spark in an instant, the very image of his mother in sterling white.

"What are you going to call him?" asked Ratchet, filling out the birth records, secretly giddy at what had been his first presiding birth.

Feeling rather poetic and slightly out of character, Emirate had the perfect answer.

"He crept up so silently, something tells me he will be a great hunter some orn." he said. "The ancient name of the great hunter will suit him perfectly."

Swiftbright's optics glittered. "_Quiet hunter_, such a noble name love, it is perfect." she cooed. "We shall call him Stalker."

-xXx

The news of the birth was met with great celebration. All the families that had newborns immediately gathered to show off their sparklings to one another and see the long awaited child of their leader. Even the Prime himself arrived to see and bless the little ones in the name of Primus.

Out of all the sparklings, tiny little Stalker was quietest. Perfectly content to ignore the world he never made a sound, until Sentinel Prime took him in his arms for the blessing.

When the infant at last opened his optics, everyone expected the sparkling to cry, but those bright blue orbs merely watched the great leader of Cybertron with vague interest, and a soft, ringing chirp sounded from the tiny being, resonating in the Prime's large frame.

A tall, long limbed mech standing by Sentinel chuckled and took Stalker from the Prime gently. The sparkling's parents objected, but a warning hand from their leader stopped them.

The mech studied the sparkling with unusually colored optics, a rich blue-green that most Cybertronians only ever saw in the boreal aura lights that shone once a vorn in the skies above Iacon. Those optics turned a deep blue as the mech lay his free hand on the sparkling's head, then returned to normal.

"I foresee a great future for this little one Sentinel." he said in a lyrical voice, laced with a strange but pleasantly lilting accent. "He will do great things, the name of the legendary hunter suits him well."

Sentinel gave his companion a look of partial disbelief. "A vision Aultis? You are certain?"

"As clear as crystal, this one will become a great mech, I see a wondrous talent and a quick mind in him. Eternity will favor this one, I know it."

Swiftbright moved to take her child from the strange mech, but paused as the sparkling reached up and grabbed the mech's outstretched finger.

The mech laughed softly. "Never fear little one, you may yet see one of my kind again. In the name of Primus, I give you blessings of his grace in hopes of the future, go in peace young _Puraru._"

At the sound of the strange sounding word, little Stalker squeaked a yawn and drifted into a peaceful sleep, given back to his mother's care.

"You have a beautiful sparkling Swiftbright." said the mech, turning away. "Raise him well."

Watching the stranger go the femme dared to question Sentinel. "Who was that mech?" she asked.

Sentinel gave her a smile. "That, lady Swiftbright, was Aultis Prime, leader of the Raicon and bearer of the Matrix of Eternity. To know that a seer such as him has such a fortuitous vision of your sparkling surely means the little one has the blessings of Primus."

With a newfound sense of awe Swiftbright looked at the sleeping face of her child, wondering just what he had in store for his future.

-XxX

Author's notes

Being a casual fan of the Transformer's series, I do not have the same extensive knowledge of the fandom as others, so many of my definitions are of my own devising.

_Orn - _Cybertronian day

_Decaorn - _Cybertronian week

_Joor - _Cybertronian month

_Klik - _shortest time measurement, roughly equivalent to eight seconds

_Breem - _Cybertronian 'minute'

_Cycle - _Cybertronian 'hour'

_Vorn - _Cybertronian 'year'

_Decavorn - _ten vorns (duh!)


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Youth

As the sparkling of Emirate grew, all that came across him would notice just how calm he was. The white sparkling rarely cried, fussed, or made any sound at all without reason, nor was he apt to move if it did not seem worth the effort. When left in the company of other sparklings, even the most boisterous of them would settle down and often joined him in quiet activities or simply into naps.

Eventually Stalker became more mobile and took to exploring his surroundings, methodically examining everything he came across once then moving on. He disliked loud noises and avoided places like the daycare center and areas with noisy machinery like a plague, his larger than normal sensory wings highly sensitive to such vibrations and making them almost painful. Not long after that point he grew into the youngling stage and his peculiarities became more apparent.

Stalker no longer chose to play with the other, more active younglings. Learning to read far sooner than his larger agemates it became fairly common to find him in his father's chair, reading a datapad far beyond his age level in absolute silence.

His mother begged him to interact more, to try to make friends, but he would only shake his head and stay silent. Frustrated, Swiftbright called in a favor to an old friend, pleading him to help get her child to open up.

So it came to be that Reverb, Praxis' greatest musician and composer visited the Emirate's home. Less than an orn passed before Stalker became utterly fascinated with the sounds the mech could produce from a simple instrument, a short resonance harp, and in only an orn the youngling could play a simple melody. His parents were stunned.

Perhaps at last they had the talent the clairvoyant Prime of their allied planet had foreseen.

-xXx

At only five decavorns old, very young for a newly adult Cybertronian, Stalker swiftly became known as the top new musician on the planet, the youngest to ever master the two keyboard deck, multilayer mixer instrument called the Syntlyre. High society mechs from the towers of Iacon clamored for the young musician to perform at their social functions, so much that Stalker actually moved away from Praxus to the capital city of Cybertron. He remained just as stoic and soft spoken as he had been as a youngling, much to his father's distress.

The Emirate had wished his child to be a warrior, but Stalker was a decidedly non-confrontational young mech, simply content to let things happen as they would and not become involved. Sure, he was exceedingly creative in the artistic aspect, but he was overly literal in his interpretation and odd twists of thought or pointless strains of chatter unnerved him. Anything that upset his logical and well-reasoned view of the world provoked nearly debilitating processor crashes and overstimulation caused him to involuntarily fall into first stage stasis lock. The white mech practically had no aggressive circuit in his frame, preferring to reason out disagreements or simply let them go. This passiveness caused more than one near fight with his father, but he always managed to talk the Emirate down with simple, indisputable logic. In that respect it was a good thing that Stalker left home for Iacon.

It was the fact that he finally made a friend that made the second good reason for leaving home.

After a performance for the Iacon academy graduation ceremony, Stalker was approached by a femme. Chromatic blue and very beautiful by most standards, the older femme gave Stalker a friendly smile and inquired about the Syntlyre.

"I have seen these instruments before, but how precisely do you play it?" she asked. "I have always wondered what it is like to play music."

Stalker met her gaze somewhat indifferently. "There are many rules and structures to music, it is by following these patterns one may create sound that does not clash in a way that disrupts the audio." he explained. "I have been told that the creative process to writing new musical scores is rather more creative problem solving than simply 'picking what sounds good'."

He had expected the femme to turn away in distaste at his dry delivery, but she laughed instead. "You make it sound like academy mathematics!" she giggled. "It can't be that boring, can it?"

A very rare, faint smile crossed Stalker's faceplates at the femme's jesting. "To me it is not." he said, sitting down at the instrument. "To follow the guidelines of music helps to create a score that causes the sparks of others to resonate with the emotions you wish to convey, it is the greatest joy I have in this world."

The femme peered over Stalker's sensory wings at the holocrystal screens flashing with hundreds of settings and score data as prettily as precious stones. "It seems like a lot of work."

"Is anything in the world worth having easily gained?" Stalker dared to ask.

She laughed. "Is it ever?" she questioned back. "My designation is Stardust, yours?"

"Stalker."

Stardust gave him one of the brightest smiles he had ever received. "Would you care to teach me about music Stalker?"

Stalker's optics widened, then he smiled back. "Gladly."

XxX

So it happened that Stalker began teaching the femme the basics of music, their friendly rapport growing over the vorns. Eventually it came to the point that Stardust was able to play the simplest two-part piece he knew simultaneously at proper speed and timing, but that was when Stalker's life was forever disrupted.

They had been conversing together at a tower gala when a tall mech, roughly half again Stalker's size, seized him by the throat and slammed him to the floor.

"Curse you lowborn upstarts!" the mech sneered, putting a heavy pede on Stalker's chassis and making the white mech gasp in pain, many others stopping to watch with interest. "You should never have stepped foot in this city! Your fancy fingers stealing the femme that is rightfully mine!"

Stardust gasped and tried to dislodge the mech, but he brutally threw her off. "No! Stalker is my friend, and I am no one's property!"

"Silence! You are to be bonded to me, to remain in _my _berth! As such, you are my property, and this peasant mech will die!" the unnamed mech yelled, unsubspacing a rifle and pointing it at Stalker's spark.

As the weapon charged Stalker closed his optics, preparing for deactivation, when an even larger mech slammed into his attacker and knocked him off balance, and the worst pain he had ever felt pierced his hand, shoulder, and sensory wing in rapid succession, making him scream.

"_Stalker!_" Stardust cried as her friend's living energon spilled from three wounds that smoked ominously, his hand almost destroyed, shoulder nearly detached, and a terrible, smoking hole punched through his left wing as he writhed in agony. What could only be powerful acid ate away at each wound, more splashed across Stalker's face from the muzzle of the rifle, burning into his optics. The bleeding gushed out vast amounts of energon, and Stalker fell into stasis lock from the pain and energon loss, hearing the chaos over him and his friend's sobbing cries.

-xXx

Onlining came as a horrible shock to Stalker's systems, his first awareness being that he was uncomfortably on his highly sensitive wings, the next that his entire left arm was completely numb, and the third that he was in agonizing pain. He heard footsteps, but could see nothing through his unresponsive optics.

"Ah, you're online." said a voice, deep and soothing, a voice that Stalker recognized with a jolt as the Prime himself.

"S-s-s" Stalker attempted to greet the leader of Cybertron, but his voice faltered and refused to respond beyond making a low staticy hiss, just like his optics. A large hand gently pushed him back down when he tried to sit up.

"Stay still young one." Sentinel Prime said softly. "You are in no condition to move."

Stalker tried to speak again, but his vocal components hissed as something ground together painfully.

More footsteps, lighter this time, approached from the left. "He's perfectly right, you mustn't move. You're fortunate to have survived, let alone waking up so soon after such trauma, but that is the extent of your luck." said the newcomer and Stalker felt smaller, more delicate hands on him. "Your optics, vocals, motor relays, and your entire left arm are completely slagged, and there's a hole big enough to fit your fist through in your chestplates. You've lost so much energon we believed you would not survive the first surgery, let alone the night."

Stalker panicked and tried to struggle free of the strong hands, but they held him down fast. "Calm down, we are trying to help you!" said the second voice.

"It is alright Stalker, son of Riftguard, you are in good hands, Ratchet is one of, if not the best medics of Cybertron." rumbled Prime.

"You are in Iacon hospital and your friend is unharmed. You are scheduled to undergo surgery to restore your optics and vocals as soon as possible, but you must remain calm if you are to heal." said the other mech, Ratchet. "I'm going to put you under again, when you wake next you should be able to see and speak again."

As promised, the world faded away, sound dulling into silence, then it snapped back into awareness.

XxX

Opening his optics he found that he could see, but it was so unfocused and dark that it was as good as blindness. He could see spots of brightness, but no color and no defined shape. A good deal of the pain was gone, but his wing and shoulder were still flaring in extreme discomfort and he couldn't feel his left hand at all.

He heard approaching footsteps and turned his head to the sound, and regretted the movement for the pain it caused.

"Stalker? Are you online?"

It was Ratchet again.

"Y-yes." Stalker managed to get out. Odd, his vocalizer was fine, if scratchy, why weren't his optics?

A heavy cycling of air caught his attention. "Stalker, I'm afraid there is some very bad news." he said, voice sounding quite dejected. "The mech that attacked you did far more damage to your systems than we first thought."

"What do you mean?" Stalker asked. "I thought you said you would restore my sight."

"That is the problem. The weapon Gravwell used on you was an acid rifle. The energon you bled out and fluids we flushed through your system diluted and washed away most of the acid, but it has done it's damage. Your sensory network is irreparably compromised." Ratchet announced sadly. "There is no fixing it unless we are to transfer your spark and processor to another frame, which you have little chance of surviving such a procedure given the very high risk of spark rejection. I'm sorry."

The medic's words crashed down on the young musician and his processor almost went offline.

"Is it true?" Stalker asked.

"It's true."

For the first time in vorns the stoic musician broke down, sobbing in utter despair.

-xXx

After some time Stalker was released from the hospital, but he would never be able to move about unassisted for the rest of his lifestream. Stardust took him into her care, but Stalker was well and truly broken, beyond care. Unable to play his beloved music, to walk on his own, or even see beyond the faintest glow of only the most intense lights, he was locked away from the world. For nearly a vorn Stalker remained silent in the deepest depression, until Stardust came to him with a suggestion.

"You know Stalker, I've come across something you might like." she said one orn. "Perhaps you might enjoy this, but the Raicon have a far greater range of musical styles than Cybertron."

At that Stalker perked up in interest, making her smile.

"I've done some research, and a shuttle to Raicieria is due to depart in two orns." Stardust said, looking at her datapad with the information. "According to my source, they also have great medical technology in the field of sensory networks, perhaps-"

"I want to go." Stalker interrupted, a rare thing. "I have resigned myself to my handicaps, if nothing else, I wish to experience their music."

Stardust laughed happily. "Then it is a good thing I have already arranged for us to take the trip then!"

Two orns later they boarded the shuttle for the journey to Cybertron's allied planet, home of their cousin race of transformers. For the most part the trip was peaceful, until halfway there the shuttle came under attack.

-xXx

Onboard the Dynasty Cruiser _Delta IX_ a young golden mech paced in agitation, his blue-green optics narrowed in frustration at a feeling he could not place. An older and larger white and green mech watched the younger with vague amusement and mostly puzzlement.

"Now Starchaser, what could possibly be the problem?" the white one asked his companion. "Are you not happy to be returning home?"

The golden one hissed, baring sharpened dentals.

"Is that really necessary?" the white mech asked. "Was it something about Orion? I was under the impression you parted on good terms."

The youth's shoulders sagged. "It's not that Stellar." he sighed. "I don't have a problem with Orion, his new mate, or anything else about him. He's future Prime of Cybertron, I'm happy for him."

Stellar raised an optic ridge, deep green optics lit in bemusement. "As are you crown prince of Raicieria." he said in his calm tones. "But what has you so agitated little one?"

"Brother, I love you, but call me that like I'm a sparkling and I'll make Raltz weld you to the rec room wall as a dart board." Starchaser deadpanned.

The white mech laughed. "I understand little brother, but what exactly is troubling you so much?"

Starchaser's backward sweeping helm fins seemed to droop. "Orion said a shuttle heading for Raicieria disappeared the orn we left Cybertron." he said. "I've been feeling strange ever since, more now in the past hour."

Stellar finally noticed the odd tint to his charge's optics, how they had not been their usual bright aqua for some time, deepening now to an alarming shade of cobalt. He rushed forward in just enough time to catch his little brother as he collapsed.

"Starchaser! Chase!" he cried, holding the small form to him. "Delphius!"

At the sound of his true name, the crown prince of the Raicon, heir to the Matrix of Eternity, snapped out of his trance then bolted out of his guardian's arms and to the cruiser's bridge.

"Leo!" the youngster cried. "Two klicks starboard! It's the downed shuttle!"

The large grey and gold mech that manned the captain's chair gave the prince one look, noted the dark blue optics of one receiving a vision from the Eternity, and turned all scanners to starboard.

Two hours later the crew of the _Axalon IX_ had gone over the remains of the shuttle and recovered all the bodies, no survivors.

"Strange." Captain Leonis Greyflight puzzled, as he looked over the dead frames of two dozen Cybertronians. "It is not like Delphius to have a vision if there are no survivors..."

"Leo!"

At the sound of the prince's cry all heads snapped to attention, and saw the golden youth kneeling by the frame of a white mech missing both legs, most of what had been sensory wings, and a large portion of his head and processor missing from a railgun shell. A large hole had been blasted out of the mech's chest, but Delphius had his hands in that hole, clutching at something.

The captain yelled in surprise when he saw just what the prince was holding, a fading spark shrouded by the cobalt aura of the youth's hands.

They had a survivor, if only just. Springing into action the Leo took charge and hoisted both mech and youngling in his arms, rushing to the medbay. The entire medical staff then spent several long hours doing what they could to stabilize the dying mech, Delphius' Matrix power being the only thing keeping his spark from going out during the emergency surgery. Eventually they achieved their goal, and the nameless white mech was in stable, if critical, condition.

Stellar carried his exhausted little brother to their shared quarters, but the youth struggled.

"Starchaser, it is time you rested." Stellar scolded him gently.

"No! Puraru still needs my help!" the prince cried, his optics still deep blue from the influence of the Eternity. "He needs me!"

That made the elder pause. "Who is Puraru?"

"I can't let him die Stellar! Orion's going to need him!"

"Why would Orion need this person?"

Delphius stilled, and a single word in the faintest whisper was all the guardian heard, but it was enough.

"_War."_

Stellar turned right back around as his charge passed out from the weight of the vision. The young Duke of Raicieria, elder brother of the Crown Prince, knew his sibling well, and the youth would never lie about something so grave. War was to come to Cybertron, and if the Eternity forewarned that the nameless survivor was needed, they must do everything in their power to make absolute certainty that he lived.

-xXx

Their return to Raicieria was met by a team of the planet's best medics and surgeons. Word had been sent ahead of the survivor from the attack, and the hospital was prepared to receive their critical patient.

Delphius had hardly left he mech's side, always watchful of the weak spark. Given this dedication and vague foreknowledge, all medical decisions were left to the prince. The head surgeon had to consult the young heir before the reconstruction surgery was to begin.

"My prince, this mech's processor is well beyond repair, his sensory network half corroded to nothing, his wings and legs will need a complete reconstruction, and his spark chamber has been compromised. There is no possible way to restore him to his former state, and even then his memory data and processor function may be irreparable."

Delphius gave the surgeon a blank stare, optics still dark blue as they had been for several days.

"Retrofit him." he said. "He was half blind and sensory dead on the left side before the attack, simply putting him back together is not an option."

"That does not solve the issue of the damaged processor." the surgeon argued. "Nearly half of it is missing, anything we do to fix it will still compromise his functionality."

The prince gave him a mysterious smile. "It will turn out." he said with a grin. "I've seen him in the future, not as a Cybertronian, but a Metamorph."

All the medics and surgeons gasped. Metamorphs were exceedingly rare, transformers capable of imitating most any species of sentient or animal life. While the Raicon could take organic and beast forms, their humanoid state was one set at their birth and could only be altered in minute variables. To know of another Metamorph when there were currently only three in current existence was a great shock.

"How is that possible?" asked one medic. "How can one simply _become_ a Metamorph? I was under the impression that they had to be born that way."

"The MetaCore." Delphius explained. "We'll need it to give his transplants life, but it isn't going to leave. It will acclimate to him, become part of him. I've already called for the Metamorph of my Guardsmen to bring in a Core."

Shocked, the head surgeon relented, and began asking for details.

-xXx

The series of operations was long, grueling, and very difficult, but the results were worth it.

The mech was no longer pure white, his armor was now a rich black, white strips up the sides of his limbs and the front of his chassis, his formerly red chevron and other small details turned burnished gold.

The outward changes did not end there. His legs were replaced with Raicon construction, to function like humanoid legs with flexible arches and articulate toes for balance, but also vaguely feline in form with retractable claws. His wings, not a normal Raicon mod, were trickier to rebuild. Eventually, under the prince's guidance, new wings modeled after that of the beast mode Delphius had chosen for the mech. A rare apex predator of a planet called Tritalch, the _Grylchion _was a flightless, winged feline that used the bony plate 'feathers' of it's flightless wings the same way Praxians did theirs, an extra set of sensory receptors. In this fashion Delphius decided to give the mech golden yellow optics like the Grylchion, highly sensitive to light and color in ways Cybertronians did not perceive, but organics could, and ways that organics could not as well.

With these new modifications all that was left was to tie them together and the MetaCore did just that. A Core's main function was to give life to inactive transmetal used for transplants, the material that made up Raicon frames. What it did however was convert the mech's entire body to living transmetal, bestowing it with all the genetic strains of hundreds of species instead of the normally required two or three, and then stayed there, fusing to the mech's sparkchamber. It also gave life to the new processor half that had been constructed, the damaged fragments left from the railgun shell cleaned away to leave a perfect half. The duplicate processor half was then integrated, not perfectly, but it was highly functional. The new processor compensated for the missing half perfectly, mirroring and enhancing the mech's cerebral functions in a way the surgeons did not expect. In fact, the mech had a rare split-function processor to begin with, where separate portions of the processor did not perfectly align, allowing for the mech to consciously support several entirely different functions at once, replacing the missing half only quadrupled this capacity.

Physically restored, if not enhanced, all that was left was for the mech to wake up. Delphius was released from his constant connection with the Matrix and it's visions once the last surgery was complete and now the prince waited for the mech to wake.

-xXx

The now black mech came to awareness slowly from his place curled up on a softly padded berth, blearily kicking off the thermal blanket draped over his body and idly noting the energon lines and monitoring cables attached to his arm and chest. The room he was in was only faintly lit with warm, low lights and the soft sound of a small fountain, water tumbling over stones, came from a corner somewhere.

Slowly he sat up, noting with confusion that nothing seemed familiar. The colors he could see on the walls were far brighter and more vibrant than he'd ever seen, the lighting subtle and just enough to prevent any part of the room to fall into total darkness, and something _smelled_ different.

"Ah, you're up." came a soft voice, youthful and clear. The mech turned luminous golden optics to the youngling sitting at the foot of the berth, watching him with interest.

"Who are you?" he asked, testing his voice and felt his tongue stumble over the words.

The youth smiled. "My name's Delphius, but call me Chase." he said quietly so as not to startle the mech. "Do you remember anything?"

Like a thunderbolt it hit him, and he stiffened, wings tense and his body coiled tightly like a wound spring.

"Decepticon!" he gasped, clutching his head in pain as the memory of the attack came back to him. Chase sighed sympathetically and crawled up onto the berth, giving the Praxian a warm embrace.

"We know. The shuttle was attacked by a rouge group of terrorists, you were the only survivor." Chase said sadly. "We had to reformat you to save you."

The reality of his situation crashed down on him violently and he clutched Chase to him like a lifeline, sobbing. The youth let him cry until he had nothing left, and stayed curled up with him warmly as he fell back into a deep, black slumber.

-xXx

When he next awoke he felt...refreshed. The energon line and other cables had been removed and the room was brighter than before, soft swirls of warm colors now clearly visible on the walls, a pattern that caused the optic to wander across it aimlessly. It was rather soothing, as was the small fountain he had noted before, breaking the silence nicely.

He wasn't alone this time either. Next to the berth was a femme seated on a small couch, reading from a datapad with her feet kicked up and music playing softly. Noticing he was awake, the femme put away both datapad and player and moved to his side.

"Hey there, feeling alright?" she asked in a lilting accent he could not identify.

"I...I am." he replied. "Who are you? Where is Chase?"

The femme laughed, a bright silvery sound to his audios. "I'm Jazminae, cultural anthropologist and official interspecies relations negotiator for the Raicierian Dynasty Royal Guardsmen. In short, I work for the kid, and he's with his tutors right now." she explained brightly, silver optics glittering against her silver face and frame, her armor with a strange reflective property that it would have made her blend into the background were it not for her vibrant personality. "I'll be your guide for as long as you stay on Raicieria."

He looked up at her blankly. "Why would I need a guide?" he asked, swinging his feet out to get up off the berth. "You are an officer, you must have more important duties than escorting me around like some lost sparkling."

"Oh I have my reasons." Jazminae said cheerfully, catching him when he fell trying to stand. "And that's one of them. You've just undergone a full body retrofit and processor restructuring, you'll be off balance for some time before you acclimate to the changes."

He hissed in discomfort as strange, tingling sensations crawled up his legs, particularly in his feet, and looked down only to gasp in shock.

"What have they done to me!" he cried, seeing his new feet for the first time.

Jazminae sat him back down before he slipped from her grip. "Relax, you lost your legs in the attack and we had to rebuild them, your wings too. You were such a mess when they found you everyone thought you were dead."

"But my legs! This isn't right!"

The femme laughed and hoisted a foot up on the berth to show him her own toes. "It's perfectly normal. If anything, you'll need the modification, Raicieria isn't anywhere nearly as smooth and level as Cybertron, articulate feet are a must if you want to keep your balance. You'll get used to it quickly, and trust me, I know how it feels."

He stared at her. "You...you've gone through this as well?"

Another laugh. "In a sense. I'm a Metamorph, so that means I can imitate almost any species. If you think just getting new feet is weird, try learning to move around like a _snake_. The Nagari are a fascinating people, but I wouldn't recommend being one if you have no sense of coordination."

Stunned, he tried to ration out the improbably situation she was suggesting, and got nothing but a strong processor ache for his troubles. Seeing his expression, Jazminae took pity on him redirected the subject.

"Forget it." she said, rubbing the distressed mech's helm gently. "Anyway, would you mind telling me your name?"

He blinked. Wait...what _was _his designation? Casting through his processor he searched vainly for any memory of his name, and got nothing. He remembered many different voices, few faces, but no names to put to them. Vaguely he remembered that he was from Praxus, of a rich, kind voice full of music and tones, and the warmth of his mother's arms.

Only one thing felt like a name, a hazy memory of colors and a comforting sound, a deep voice saying the strange word.

"_Puraru._" he whispered. "Is that my name?"

Jazminae tilted her head to one side in confusion. "Are you sure? That's what Chase called you when he was having his visions."

"What does it mean?"

"It's a very old name in ancient Cybertronian." she said. "No one really uses it because...well, for one because hardly anyone on Cybertron remembers it, but it was the name of a legendary hunter. It means _he who moves in silence._" A long pause, and she perked up. "You know, I think it suits you. Puraru...hmm, how do you pronounce it in the modern language? Pral? Purol? Ah wait, I got it! Prowl!"

The dark mech tested the name on his tongue several times, and found he liked it. "Puraru, Prowl, yes, my name is Prowl." he said.

Jazminae smiled. "Cool, nice to meet you then Prowl, welcome to Raicieria."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Adapting

Raicieria, as Prowl quickly learned, was a very busy planet. Jazminae told him that her home had nearly triple the population of Cybertron, and one eighth of that massive number were alien. Walking down any one street in the capital city of Rysta'an you could easily count to no fewer than twenty different races, most of them organic, all going about their business in a hurried, but amiable manner, calling out greetings in passing. The issue of scale was somehow ignored, what should have been far smaller organic species were roughly the same size as the native Raicon, and such an absurdity almost crashed his processor before his companion explained it.

"It's not that they're bigger Prowl." she said soothingly. "It's that we're smaller. We Raicon can fold down our mass to less than an eighth of our full size, and a good number of us spend most of our lives in a humanoid organic form."

Prowl gaped at her in disbelief. "But what about me? I am not a Raicon."

"Technology Puraru. If we've mastered time-space warping, we sure as hell can manage a shrink ray, that and the planet itself has a one of a kind spacial distortion." she laughed, tweaking his nose. "Not that you're really a true Cybertronian anymore, remind me to show you the trick later."

Confused, Prowl tried to inquire as to what the 'trick' was, but Jazminae moved on down the marketplace and he had to concentrate on walking to follow.

"How in Primus' name do you move so quickly on these feet?" he asked once he had caught up. "It is like you never even touch the ground."

Jazminae only giggled and went back to her conversation with the shopkeeper, leaving her companion time to get his bearings and look around.

The...creature behind the counter was nothing like Prowl had ever seen (not that it meant anything with his non-existent memory). Smooth, pale 'skin', grey 'eyes', long, pointed 'ears', and long black fibers Jazminae called 'hair' on it's..._his_ head, bound together in one bundle at the back of the neck.

Jazminae waved him over to the counter. "Hey Prowl, here's someone I want you to meet." she said cheerfully. "Prowl, this is Eltan. Eltan, Prowl."

"Charmed." said Eltan, giving the dark mech a sharp toothed smile and holding out a hand. "So you're the miracle case everyone's been gossiping about, nice to know there's a face behind the stories."

"Uh, thank you?" Prowl replied, looking at the outstretched hand in confusion.

Eltan laughed and grasped Prowl's limp hand himself and grasped it firmly. "This is a handshake, a gesture of greeting and friendship in most organic cultures." he said with a smile.

Ah, that made more sense. "I see, a pleasure to meet you then." Prowl said, responding to the contact with equal measure before letting go. "If you will forgive me asking, what exactly are you?"

Expecting the alien to be offended, the mech was surprised when he burst out laughing. "Heh, you really are out of your depth aren't you? Anyway, I'm actually a Raicon, this is my humanoid state." he explained, then with a shimmer of energon discharge a slim black and green mech with grey optics stood in his place. "See? Almost all Raicon can do this."

Prowl was stunned, but Jazminae had explained to him what exactly Transmetal was, so it was only a shock to see the sheer extent of the strange material's transformation capability.

"Amazing."

"Thanks!" Eltan chuckled. "Feel free to look around, ask me if you need something, okay?"

"Understood." Prowl said, turning around.

Strange, beautiful, and exotic instruments from Primus knows how many different planets lined the walls, and towering shelves of music datafiles and...what was _that_? As if in a trance Prowl strode to the back of the shop, to the largest instrument there. Jazminae looked up as her companion sat down on the bench in front of it.

"Hey El, what exactly is that?" she asked. "The thing that looks like a pipe organ and a mix table got together and had conjoined twins, what in the world do you need all those controls for?"

"Oh that? That's a Syntlyre. Artists like them because they function as a mixing board, but calibrating them correctly is almost impossible if you don't have an expert's understanding. I've never seen anyone play one properly in double tandem before, probably never will."

Watching her charge, a smile crept over Jazminae's features. "El, I think you just jinxed that statement."

As she said it Prowl's fingers flew over the keys, a complex melody coming from the device. Eltan struggled to pick his jaw up off the floor in his shock.

"By Primus Jaz, where the hell did you find him?!"

"Remember the shuttle that got gunned down near Taelro three sectors over?" she asked in a low voice. She knew Prowl would be perfectly able to hear her, but it was the sentiment that counted. "He's the only survivor."

"Damn...lucky mech." Eltan whistled.

"Lucky to be alive, took eight doctors, twenty seven surgeries, five months and a MetaCore to do it. He's got some pretty significant memory loss, but he's doing very well."

Eltan grimaced in sympathy. Five months was _not _a short time. The Raicon reckoned time much the same way most 'human' planets did, sixty seconds to an minute and sixty minutes to an hour, but there were thirty six hours to a day and five hundred forty seven and one fifth days to a year. Raicon also healed quickly, so even a single month's stay of about forty three days was almost an unthinkably long time in a hospital.

"Yeow, damn long time to be laid up." Eltan hissed. "How's he doing?"

"Pretty good." Jazminae quipped. "He's adjusting to his new mods quickly, the new feet threw him for a loop for awhile but the grylchion wing redesigns are working perfectly, he might be able to transform soon."

"Good for him." said the now pleased shopkeeper. "If he ever wants to fiddle with that Syntlyre, he's welcome to it, and I'd be willing to sell it, plus substorage case, for half price."

The femme nearly hit the floor. "What?! That thing has to be worth a small fortune!"

Eltan's smile turned to a smirk when he noticed Prowl's playing slow down, noting that he was paying attention to the conversation. "Hey, I got it secondhand for almost nothing, idiot had no idea what it was and it's practically new. Frankly I'm just happy someone that can play it showed up."

"You really mean it? You'd sell it for half price?" Jazminae asked. "You'd be cutting yourself short a large chunk of change."

The shopkeeper smiled. "That'd be nice, but not necessary. Like I said, I got it for basically small change, and quite frankly it's taking up a lot of space. Most customers like it because it makes for a good toy, but I'd rather see a serious player have it."

That done and said, Prowl spent an enjoyable afternoon in the music shop, exploring all kinds of alien instruments and listening to foreign styles while Jazminae talked over a portable with someone, wrangling official details into line for Prowl. The current debate was whether he was still a citizen of Cybertron or if he was to be considered a re-nationalized denizen of Raicieria. Given that they had no name to draw from, the Empire's contacts on Cybertron were combing the planet for a mech that fit Prowl's former description.

White Praxian mech, approximate age of one hundred thirty decavorns, fitted with sensory wings. So far they had no results, but now Jazminae had a new detail to add to the search, Prowl was an accomplished player of the Syntlyre. Giving that bit of info to her contact, Jazminae got a response almost instantly.

_:Jazzie, I've got something!:_ came an exited cry from the comm. The mech on the other end was a Raicon communications specialist called Sonus, an easygoing fellow that acted as one of the official go-betweens for the two planets. _:Missing person, Praxian musician, white, sensory wings, master Syntlyre player. Records say he was reported missing two deca-orns after shuttle seven-nine-delta-one was confirmed down.:_

Jazminae smiled, now they were getting somewhere. "Awesome, you got specs?"

_:Specs I've got in plenty Jazz-ma'am, mech's reported missing by creators Swiftbright and...holy Primus...:_

"Sonus? What's wrong?"

_:Jaz, this mech's the Emirate's son!:_ Sonus yelped. _:This report's also got the __**Prime's **__notice of urgency! I have to call it in!:_

"Then call it in. Contact Sentinel Prime and the Emirate we have a confirmed missing person in custody." Jazminae said softly, feeling a touch of disappointment. She had grown fond of her new friend in the month she had been caring for him, teaching him to walk and function on his own again, loving his dry, ready wit and penchant for sarcasm that sent her rolling with laughter. It was nice to have a new person to teach her love of cultures, dance, music, and general _life _and Prowl was a ready student. Not only that, he was also a new Metamorph and to know that made her feel a bit less lonely, that there was another of her very rare kind, he was now the only male Metamorph in current existence.

_:Will do Jazzie, when can they expect you to arrive?:_

"Negative on that, he's not medically fit for space-flight." she reported. "Doctor's orders."

_:Roger that, I'll contact you when I get a response.:_

Shutting off the connection Jazminae sighed.

'Well, there goes that.' she mused. 'Just have to see what comes then.'

-xXx

A month later a shuttle arrived from Cybertron. The Prime, Emirate, Swiftbright, Sentinel's son Orion and his mate Ariel and medic Ratchet descended from the ship, greeted by Aultis Prime and his grandson Delphius.

"Welcome to Raicieria Sentinel, Emirate Riftguard." said Aultis warmly. "I take it you have heard the news?"

"Yes!" Emirate hissed. "Where are you keeping my son!"

"Em! Be polite!" Swiftbright scolded. "Please, where is Stalker?"

"He is with one of my grandson's guardsmen." Aultis said.

"They might be at Eltan's music shop if they aren't in the palace, they're there at least five times a week." Delphius cut in before his grandfather could continue. "I'll call them, give me a minute." the youth said, turning away.

Ariel looked to her mate in confusion. "Orion, what is a 'minute' and 'week'?"

The big mech gave her a patient smile. "It is part of how they measure time here, sixty seconds to a minute and eight seconds is equal to a klik in our measure. A week in this planet's time is eight solar cycles."

Ariel frowned. "Why not use normal measures like sensible mechs?"

Aultis laughed at her disgruntlement. "That would be because of our dealings with so many organic sentients and the majority of them measure time in the same manner, nice rounded numbers." he explained. "Delphius, have you confirmed where they are?"

The golden youth nodded. "Yep, they're in the east practice hall again."

"Lead the way then please." said Sentinel. "I am eager to see young Stalker again."

"Funny you'd say that." Delphius quipped as the group boarded the lift, making them all glance at him again.

"Why do you say that?" asked Ratchet. "You make it sound like something is amiss."

"Like you wouldn't believe."

They arrived at a set of large doors and Delphius stopped them.

"What is it?"

Delphius met Swiftbright's optics almost sadly. "I need to warn you all, Pr...Stalker...was so badly injured that he needed a total body retrofit, he doesn't look like he used to."

Ratchet hissed. "You can't be serious! He was not a candidate for a body transfer!"

"It wasn't a body transfer." the prince corrected. "A retrofit is a remodeling of the body, additions on top of previous structure to replace missing limbs and things like that. He lost both legs above the knee, both wings, his left arm, a large chunk out of his chest, and almost half his processor, retrofitting was a necessary evil."

They all gasped. "H-half his processor?" Swiftbright stuttered. "No one could survive that!"

Delphius actually smiled at that one. "Not him." he said. "We found that he had a split-function processor, that guy'd be able to function like a normal mech even if we didn't fix it."

The door opened, and a black, snarling...something crashed several feet in front of them into the sand of the practice ring. Untangling long limbs from underneath itself and spitting sand, it stood and shook irritating grains from the large sweeping sensory wings spreading from it's back, flicking open various small flaps in the appendages to dislodge yet more sand.

Shocked, the visitors gaped as they watched the strange creature shake itself and dig dangerous looking claws into the ring floor, growling softly.

"Having problems?" asked Delphius neutrally. Golden amber optics dulled and wings drooped. "That bad?" A nod.

A bright laugh sounded from somewhere to the right, and a silver femme practically materialized from the shadow of a medium sized crate.

"Aw Prowler you're still doing it wrong!" she said. "You have to hit the ground with your _front_ feet first! Stop trying to land like you're still bi-pedal."

The beast turned it's gaze to the femme. "You aren't the one eating sand right now, don't lecture me." it said in a dull tone, walking almost unsteadily back to the crate and the ramp on the side. Perching on the edge of the crate, it bunched it's four feet together in preparation for a jump.

It was as it began to push off with it's hind legs that he noticed the visitors, and in a startling flash of movement there was a near violent ripple of energy and a slim black mech with the same sensory wings as the beast tumbled to the ground, rolled, and landed in a crouch, panting sharply in an effort to cool off.

The silver femme clapped loudly. "Awesome transformation landing! Way to go!" she crowed happily. "Wasn't what we were working on, but that was great!"

The mech half twisted to face her, optics narrowed in stunned irritation, and promptly lost balance, landing on his aft and making her laugh harder.

Aultis chuckled and gave the mech a hand up. "I see you are working hard, how is your progress?"

The mech sighed. "Just when I've got one motion down I mess it up, four feet are much harder to move with than I expected."

"I keep telling you Prowler, you have to _think _like your beast mode if you want it to work right." Jazminae mock scolded him. "Trying to keep your root-mode perspective isn't doing you any favors."

Prowl met her optics and said something that just _had _to be a snappy retort in some odd language, sending her into a fit of giggles, which she quickly controlled when Aultis waved to get her attention and led them out of the room to a meeting parlor.

"Jazminae, this is Sentinel Prime and Emirate Riftguard." he introduced. "Sirs, this is Jazminae, xenoanthropologist, linguist, interpreter, and interspecies relations officer of the Royal Guardsmen."

"Charmed." Jazminae quipped, bowing slightly. "So you got my message?"

"Indeed." said Emirate. "Where is my son?"

"Back in the training room." she answered easily. "He's been doing really well with his rehab."

"Wait, if you are a cultural scientist, why are you doing physical therapy with a patient?" asked Ratchet.

"Let's just say I know what it's like to learn a different way of walking." Jazminae said calmly. "I'm a Metamorph, so that means I have to learn how to move in each new transformation, and your son's legs were replaced with a different construction sir Emirate."

"I want to see him."

Jazminae stood, but turned back to the visitors. "I don't know if you've already been told this, but your son has suffered severe damage to his processor."

"We know." said Swiftbright. "Is something wrong?"

The silver femme's optics darkened. "You should be prepared for the possibility that he will not recognize you ma'am. He can make new memories, but most his situational memory from before the incident is lost."

Swiftbright fought back a sob and clutched her mate. He gave her a gentle squeeze and told Jazminae to fetch his son.

As she left Delphius spoke up. "You should know, but your son didn't remember his own name." he said. "In fact, he couldn't remember _any _names of people. He renamed himself by what I called him during my trances with the Matrix of Eternity. Stalker goes by Prowl now."

"Someone say my name?"

Jazminae had returned, leading the same dark mech that had been in the training room. He stepped forward and greeted Aultis properly. "I apologize for my earlier behavior sir, I was...frustrated."

Aultis chuckled good-naturedly a took his hand. "Prowl, there is someone I want you to meet." he said, getting out of his chair and leading Prowl to the visitors. "This is Sentinel Prime."

Sentinel smiled and shook Prowl's hand. "A pleasure to meet you Prowl."

"The Leader of Cybertron." Prowl said, looking up at the large mech, confusion in his golden optics. "...have we met? Your voice, it feels familiar."

The Prime nodded. "We have indeed met young one, many times."

Prowl's optics widened, head whipping around to look at the others. "Then...they are..."

"Son." said Emirate.

"Stalker." said Swiftbright, opening her arms. "My sparkling."

Prowl was in her embrace in an instant, clutching at her tightly. Emirate joined in the embrace and the three of them sobbed quietly.

"Oh Stalker! My little muse, you look so different!" Swiftbright cried, patting across Prowl's faceplates and golden chevron. "Your optics, your beautiful white armor!"

"Mother." Prowl said quietly, voice raw. "I...I don't think I'm really Stalker anymore."

"But you are! You're our son!" Emirate exclaimed. "You always will be!"

"I know Father." Prowl acknowledged. "But I remember nothing about _being _Stalker, only small bits and flashes that make no sense. Mother, Father, please...call me Prowl, I want to start over."

The bonded pair met each other optics, and came to the same decision.

"If that is what you want son." said Emirate. "I...I wasn't supportive enough to you, we always fought, even if you always won the argument with your logic, we never should have been arguing in the first place. Stalker...no, Prowl, I'll be there for you should you need me."

"Of course sweetspark, you're my little one and I'll always love you." Swiftbright said, optics tearing up. "I'd do anything for your happiness, and who knows, maybe this is a turn for the better."

-xXx

The Cybertronians stayed in the palace for three weeks. Sentinel Prime got Prowl officially documented as dual-citizenship between Cyberton and Raicieria, so the retrofitted mech was always welcome to return to Cybertron should he wish. Orion and Ariel had a wonderful time exploring the exotic interracial atmosphere of the capital, Ratchet took a crash course in Raicon and Metamorph physiology, and Prowl's parents spent every moment they could with their son.

Near the end of their stay Prowl and Jazminae showed them Eltan's music shop, and the first thing Emirate did was ask how much the Syntlyre was.

"Are you interested in it Father?" Prowl asked. "I wasn't aware that you played music."

Emirate chuckled. "I don't. It's for you." he said. "I think it is about time you had one of your own."

If Prowl were a less constrained mech he would have been bouncing in excitement. "Would you really Father?"

"Absolutely son, you deserve it."

That evening Prowl set up _his _new Syntlyre in the common area of his and Jazminae's quarters, along with half a dozen other instruments that had struck his fancy. His roommate was rather pleased with the addition, for despite being such a well traveled and culture-savvy person, she didn't exactly have a lot of stuff in the way of furnishings. Sure, she had a music collection and sound system to kill for and textiles from over a dozen exotic planets, she had little need for furniture so the spacious rooms she kept in the palace were rather bare.

"Nice." she said from her place in the doorway. "Makes the place feel a little more lived in."

Prowl laughed. "Your quarters are covered from wall to wall with draperies, rugs, and cushions, and you say it doesn't feel lived in?"

She snorted. "Doesn't mean anything if all that wide space is empty. It's nice to have the space to dance, but I practice in the arts hall. This is the first time I've ever had a roommate, and I think I like it, they give us guardsmen way too much space."

They shared a laugh and Prowl finished up what he was doing.

"You going to get around to learning those instruments when you go back to Cybertron?" Jazminae dared to ask.

Prowl gave her a strange look. "What makes you think I'm returning to Cybertron?"

"Don't you want to be with your family?"

"I do, but I do not think I am ready. I would rather stay with you, get my bearings, and stay with my best friend." he told her, taking her hands in his. "I would like to be more, if what I feel is true."

Jazminae faltered at the sincerity in his voice. "You mean that?"

"With all my spark." Prowl said with such feeling it floored her. "Jazminae, what I do remember of my past is full of loneliness, but when I am with you I feel completed. I do not know if it is a passing 'crush', but I want to stay, to learn and live."

Jazminae laughed. "Take all the time you need Prowler, I'd be happy to keep you." she said, kissing his chevron.

"Thank you."

The Cybertronians left two days later, wishing Prowl the best of luck in his endeavors, for he had chosen to join the Royal Guardsmen, to study other cultures and to learn the art of military tactics, something his new processor was extremely adept at.

The universe was open to him now, and with a bright new perspective and a good friend to guide him he was going to take it.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Breakout

Fifty-five Raicierian years since his 'rebirth' Prowl had more than earned his place in the Dynasty Royal Guardsmen as a first class tactician, negotiator, and diplomatic liaison. No matter where in the galaxies the Guardsmen went, Prowl was always partnered with Jazminae, her cultural expertise balancing out his tactical mind and making them the perfect negotiation team.

The Guardsmen did not see battle often, mostly because of aforementioned negotiations, but it was obvious that all of them were the best of the best Raicieria had to offer. Their interstellar flagship was the great cruiser _Axalon IX_, captained by a son of Aultis Prime, Duke Leonis Greyflight, Prince Delphius' uncle. Captain Leo was renown for his prowess in battle, and how he brought out the best in his crew.

Under that tutelage Prowl became a fierce fighter in any form he chose to take, learning how to disable, neutralize, or kill with the greatest efficiency. His favorite weapons were his bare claws and an acid energy rifle, taking from his experience with the similar weapon that had basically ended his life as Stalker. He had also mastered the art of the hunt using his instincts in beast mode, the revered and feared Grylchion, translating those same instincts over to his other forms and making his name a perfect description.

_Silent motion, _to Prowl.

So as it was life aboard the _Axalon_ was never dull, given the variety of quirky personalities on the ship.

Captain Leo was a stern and effective leader, but as passionate as his beast mode, the noble Gryphon. First-Mate Autimos came across as a bit stiff, but was a friendly guy once you got past the exterior.

The Navigator, a lovely femme named Arrizash, was a graceful flyer and had a soft singing voice, but was as much a spitfire as any other female in the Guard. No one dared cross the bird of prey if they wanted to keep eyes or optics in their heads.

Next was Stellar, Delphius' brother and guardian, his official name was Duke Tygernach, but no one called him that if not in the most dire circumstances. A deadly fighter if needed, Stellar was more content to map out stars and explore new planets in his sedate stride. Much like Stellar was the engineer Raltz, a big mech with a booming voice but gentle hands, never using any more force than required.

Opposite the engineer was the Science Officer Rachia, who practically _defined_ the word 'spitfire'. A flyer femme with a biting sense of sarcasm and a vindictiveness no one ever dared to mess with her if they didn't want to end up in one of her experiments in the most painful manner. The only one to ever get into her personal space was her boyfriend, the Arial Commander Ginda, a gentle soul with such a deep core of chivalry and duty that it annoyed many, but won them over regardless.

Then there was the one that annoyed _everyone, _sabotage and infiltration expert Nezurio. A small mech with a big attitude and bigger prankster streak, constantly fighting with Takeshi, who was Delphius' official bodyguard. Takeshi was a fierce and easily provoked mech, with an unsubtle black and white dog beast mode, but the hound part of his nature made him a natural in unrestricted melee combat.

Finally, the last (if not most important) member of the command structure was the Chief Medical Officer, a young femme named Tsugawa, which meant MoonRiver, and preferred to simply be called River. A prodigy in the field, the young medic was highly skilled in all aspects in medical sciences, from the mechanoid, beasts, and humanoids. Calm, but with a ready wit and even readier aim River was a force to be reckoned with and not even Nezurio would dare cross her.

The rest of the crew were less notable in rank, but just as interesting. The Spearhead Team, who were the best at breaking enemy lines and doing catastrophic damage were all partially refitted Cybertronians, lead by a triple changer called Depthcharge, or DC to most of the crew. Single minded in his duties, nothing would stop him accomplishing his mission. DC was joined by pyrotech Inferno, sharpshooter Quickstrike (nicknamed Quipper for his off-wall comments), and the second triple changer Rampage, all three of them had mental instabilities, but were kept in line and stable under Depthcharge's leadership.

Rounding out the crew for a total of fifteen were Prowl, Jazminae, and Delphius. The prince had developed an unusual ability over the years, different from his family who normally had strength emphasized mech forms. Delphius, going by Starchaser or just Chase most of the time, was aptly named as such because his mech form was built for _speed._ Reaching speeds just below mach one at his young age he was recorded to be the fastest Raicon on record, and was likely to only get faster as he grew to maturity. Coupled with his ability of foresight, Chase's speed was an invaluable tool, even if he didn't quite have the firepower or armor to back it up in battle just yet, he still had some growing to do.

Together the Guardsmen explored the galaxies, maintaining and forging bonds with other sentient races, dissolving potential wars, and spreading the Emipre's alliance boundaries. Life was good, interesting, and fulfilling.

It was not to last.

-xXx

A scream ringing throughout the cruiser's halls woke all the crew members in the middle of the night, particularly the light sleepers like Prowl. Recognizing the voice as Chase, the Metamorph tore out of his and Jazminae's shared quarters and rushed to the Prince's room in a panic.

"Chase!" Prowl yelled, overriding the door lock and skidding into the room. "Delphius!"

The young golden mech was thrashing and crying out in distress, sheets tangled around his long limbs as he unconsciously tried to claw free of whatever he was seeing in his vision. Acting quickly Prowl ripped away the covers and pulled Chase to the floor, restraining the youth against him with his arms until his struggles died down.

Others drifted in as the prince's cries faded, and Stellar took his younger brother from Prowl. The youth was limp and panting, optics wide but unseeing, the deep blue of the Matrix suffusing them.

"Brother." Stellar said softly, running a soothing hand over Chase's head. "Little brother, what have you seen?"

The blue faded from Chase's optics as he began to sob, clinging to Stellar like a lifeline. "Stel! It's started!" he cried. "Sentinel is dead!"

Stellar hissed and held Chase tighter. "Are you certain little one?"

"Yes! Orion's hurt bad, Megatron tried to kill him! The Decepticons have declared war!" Chase gasped, then passed out.

Stellar looked up at Prowl. "This is grave news. Inform my uncle at once, we are to head for Cybertron immediately."

"Understood."

-xXx

The Guard Squadron's arrival on Cybertron was kept as quiet as possible, the group that came down to Iacon did so with as much stealth as they could. It was easier said then done, but it was accomplished with a minimum of complications.

The first thing Chase did was demand to see his fellow Matrix heir immediately, and they were escorted to Iacon hospital.

Chase did not like what he saw, despite being forewarned of the sheer damage his cousin had taken, to see it in lucid awareness was still a shock. Orion's chest had been ripped open, spark casing cracked to near failure, his arms torn almost into pieces, legs crushed, and a horrible plasma blade wound across his handsome face. Not a single part of his body was unscathed or unmarred with bled energon, Chase had to fight hard to keep his composure.

Hissing, the prince turned to the CMO, Ratchet. "What is his prognosis?"

Ratchet met Chase's gaze with equal anger. "Not good." he said. "Nearly all of his systems have shut down and he's on the most critical level of life support. I don't know what I can do, I'm not Primus, I can't work such miracles."

Chase's expression went slack as his optics darkened. "Reformat." he said in a slow, measured tone. "My medic will assist you, the last...no, second last of Cybertron's Prime lineage must survive."

River, having come with the team to the planet carefully sat Chase down and held his hands as she quietly questioned him for details. Ratchet looked to Prowl in confusion.

"What is going on?"

"Delphius is future Prime of the Raicon and a powerful seer." Prowl explained. "Given the circumstances it is best you did as he said, reformat Orion."

"Optimus." said Chase. "The Matrix says his name is now Optimus Prime."

"Then let's get to work." River declared, grabbing Ratchet and making a beeline for the surgery suite. "We haven't got much time to loose."

They wasted no more time and down to work immediately, restructuring the Prime's broken body into a larger, more powerful frame, giving him two plasma swords and arm-mount cannons under Chase's directions. There was little they could do for the scarring of his face without extensive cosmetic surgery, and at most they could only smooth it out and install a battle mask that he would surely need in the future.

When they had finished Orion Pax now truly looked like his new title. Bold red across his blue and silver frame, doubled armor and integrated weapons, and a now taller stance. He woke after the surgeries to see the changes with some shock and surprise, but found he rather liked it.

"Thank you Ratchet, Moonriver, you certainly are the best of medics." he said, examining his new weapon mounts. "But are these really necessary?"

Chase sat at the foot of Optimus' berth, yawning. "You're gonna want them big guy." he said sleepily. "Gonna need 'em bad when the fighting gets worse."

"What have you seen, my cousin?" Optimus asked.

Chase sighed heavily. "I was shown a horrible war when we found Prowl, the Matrix was saying that you'd need him, but never _**when**_. I'd warned Sentinel, but I had no details, just visions of destruction and massacre." he grimaced. "I should have done more...maybe your father would still be alive..."

"Don't even think about it Delphius Elth-Prime." Optimus growled. "Fellow Matrix heir or not, I'll spank you 'till your aftplate falls off."

The look on Chase's face made everyone laugh, but the Prince was not so amused.

"Yeah yeah, laugh it up, but what are we going to do?" he asked. "Megatron has declared war, and is backing up his threats. You're going to need officers for the Autobot army, soldiers, bases, supplies, and Primus knows what else."

Optimus thought for a moment, then glanced at Prowl. "Delphius, would you mind lending me your tactician?" he asked. "We are going to need his expertise in coming battles, true tacticians trained by the Royal Guard are the best of the best."

Prowl's faceplates turned a faint pink at the praise. "I am not thatgood sir." he muttered, flicking his wings, but a brush along the underside of one of them made them stand straight up as he gasped. "Jaz!"

Jazminae laughed. "Hush it Prowler, you're the best and even the folks here on Cybertron know it. You know every military and other kind of tactics from more than a hundred planets and two hundred nations, and can _use _them. I'd say if anything, you're _over_qualified."

Prowl's blush deepened. "You've made your point, but could you _please_ not goose me in public?"

She laughed and Optimus raised an optic ridge at their antics. "Am I missing something in the context here?"

"We're life partners." Jazminae said. "Basically one step away from bondmates."

That brought a smile to Optimus' face. "Then I should be expressing my congratulations, but will this be a problem between you two if Prowl joins my officers?"

"Nah, no problem at all." Jazminae quipped. "'cause I'm joining him. You could use a good spy and I learned a hell of a lot about sabotage from Nez. Just set me up with some extra armor and I'll be good to go."

Ratchet didn't quite like that idea. "You will be a single femme in a large group of mechs, and our enemies will not be kind to female prisoners."

"Again, no problem. I'll need the armor's extra mass to pull it off, but I can imitate a Cybertronian mech easy."

The medic's optics narrowed. "Prove it."

She did. With the signature energon discharge of Metamorph transformation Jazminae shifted her frame into a flawless imitation of a young mech, and her voice when she spoke was perfectly masculine without being over the top.

"How's that for proof?" she asked, adjusting her stance to the posture of a youth, impatient and brassy.

"That...that is an impressive trick." Ratchet gaped. "Can Prowl do the same?"

Prowl snorted, a habit he had picked up from Takeshi. "Hardly. Only female Metamorphs can do the reverse gender thing. I could impersonate almost any male form within a certain range of mass, but my acting skills are left something to be desired."

"You just need more practice." said Chase. "It took Jaz a long time to get to the point she's at, it's only a matter of the work you put into it. Still, I do feel better keeping you two together, Optimus is going to need you."

"Acknowledged."

"Good. You now report to Optimus' chain of command. I will arrange for augmentation armor for Jazminae and speak with my grandfather about a supply line." said Chase. "Optimus, I feel we may have to establish refugee colonies in Racierian territory, should the worst come to pass. Do you agree?"

"Absolutely. Thank you for your support."

"No problem." the golden prince said with a grin before sweeping out the door. "Oh, and tell Ariel I said 'congratulations'."

Optimus and Ratchet shared a confused glance, while Prowl and Jazminae shared an amused one. Two orns later Ariel was brought to the citadel to be with her mate. First thing she did was admire his new physique, express her joy that he had survived the attack, then dropped the bombshell on him that she was expecting their first sparkling.

Safe to say Prowl and Jazminae were laughing themselves silly as the Prime fell to the floor, offline.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Wartime

Prowl and Jazminae were quickly brought into the fold of the newly formed Autobot forces under Optimus Prime. Prowl was given the position of Tactical Officer and control of the Ops department while Jazminae (having received her new armor) had taken the male persona of Jazz and became a Special Operations lieutenant under a mech called Spinout. Both Metamorphs had reconfigured their shapes to appear as natural Cybertronians, and Prowl took on most of his former coloring from when he was Stalker, primarily white but adding black here and there with a red chevron and blue optics. Jaz simply adapted the spectrum visor that came with her armor to be blue and left it at that, keeping her polished silver color that blended in everywhere.

Jazz (the mech persona) had an easygoing nature and readiness to chatter that earned him quick friends, but Prowl was a little less warmly received, not that he cared. He was constantly butting heads with Optimus' bodyguard/weapons specialist Ironhide, the larger mech always finding fault with Prowl's tightly controlled and professional atmosphere and his unorthodox (but highly effective) tactics.

"For the last time Ironhide, we simply do not have the numbers or firepower to approach the enemy head on in this situation." Prowl said calmly, though inside he was ready to strangle the mech that was currently getting in his face.

"You're saying we should be skulking around like cowards and thieves!"

Prowl successfully fought the urge to sigh heavily in exasperation and kept a straight face. "It is a perfectly legitimate strategy that will suit the situation at Kaon better than a frontal assault. The more damage we can reduce to our own forces while maximizing damage to the enemy the better."

Ironhide gave him a look that could have peeled paint. "You want us to act like those Pit-damned 'Cons, killing them outside the battlefield."

"Guerrilla warfare Ironhide, the best method for a small force like ours against a larger one like their's." Prowl said, still outwardly composed save for a faint tic developing in his left optic in irritation. "There is no time to spare honor here, they have five times the numbers and many times more firepower. Our best chance is to strike the weapons depository and the barracks before what is left of Kaon is turned into a leveled battlefield and the energon refineries are destroyed. If those factories go up, so will half the continent and all the sublevels beneath it."

Optimus waved Ironhide down. "Easy friend, Prowl has a point. As distasteful as it is, we have no other options." he said and nodded to his head of Special Operations, Spinout. "Send in the saboteurs Spinout, infiltrate the facility and do what you do best."

"Understood Prime sir." said Spinout. "Permission to borrow Tactical Officer Prowl for the mission?"

Optimus shared a look with Prowl and nodded. "Granted. Prowl, work your magic."

Five orns later the Decepticon base of operations in Kaon was left in absolute ruin, Spinout's team returning victorious with no losses. Ironhide didn't see Prowl or Jazz with the group, nor did he see Jazz in the rec room celebrating with the others later on that orn, confused at their disappearance until Spinout told him they were in the medbay, Prowl had sustained some injuries and Jazz was keeping a pair of youngling they had rescued from freaking out.

Upon hearing that there were younglings on base, and being the veteran caretaker, Ironhide immediately headed for the medbay, intent on relieving the impulsive and irresponsible mech of the little ones before he corrupted them completely.

He wasn't expecting the sight that greeted him there.

Out of the five mechs there, he only recognized Ratchet. There were the two younglings, barely out of the sparkling stage, that Spinout had mentioned, but Jazz and Prowl were missing. Where they should have been were a dark, unfamiliar mech with sharply angled wings and yellow optics and a silver _femme, _each holding a youngling carefully in their arms. Ratchet was working on the mech's leg, which was made with the oddest construction Ironhide had ever seen, pulling what looked like shrapnel out from between plates of armor, some bits covered with bled energon that was a startling red color. Listening carefully Ironhide stayed out of sight and as far away as possible, not wanting the winged mech to notice him with those sensory panels.

Ratchet was grumbling almost good-naturedly at the winged mech as he worked. "Primus, what in the Pit did you _do_ to get these things in so deep?" he asked. "And how the blazes did you get back to base unnoticed?"

The mech winced as another fragment was pulled out but otherwise did not react to the obviously painful procedure, only shifting the youngling better in his arms. "Honestly, I'm not quite sure what happened. I was planting the charges in the control station, got attacked as I was moving on, and from there it is a bit of a blur " he said, stoking the youngling's helm when the little mech whimpered. "I know I hit my head at some point during the fight, but when I came back to normal awareness my leg was a complete mess. I got the worst of it out and shifted my armor to protect my leg and move normally, but from there I was in transformation lock, I won't be able to change back until all the foreign material is gone."

The femme laughed quietly at this. "Good thing you were already in root mode then eh Puraru?" she said, cradling the second youngling against her shoulder and rubbing his back soothingly as she rocked on her pedes, humming a sweet tune.

'Puraru' gave the femme a flat look that Ironhide simply could not interpret, given the strange color and shape of his optics. "Don't get me started Jaz."

Ironhide's optics went wide in shock. Jazz? That couldn't possibly be Jazz! He was a mech, not a femme!

The femme gave a chiming giggle and leaned over to kiss the dark mech's cheek. "Aw, love you too Prowler."

Prowler? Wasn't that what Jazz called Prowl?

Ratchet made a noise and waved his pliers under the femme's nose. "Don't you get started either missy, I don't know what you two do in your quarters and I don't want to, but you'll keep it out of my medbay, clear?"

"Crystal clear Ratch-batch."

The medic only shook his head and went back to work on the mech's leg. "You Metamorphs are impossible, you know that?"

Ironhide almost choked on his glossa. The femme was a Metamorph? Metamorphs weren't supposed to exist!

"Alright, shift your shin plates a bit will you?" Ratchet said, prodding a spot of the mech's armor and several plates slid apart. "That's better. How many more can you feel in there?"

The mech frowned. "Two...no, three, you missed one further up." he said dully.

"Ah, I see it now. Primus, this is so much easier than having to scan you constantly if you can simply _tell_ me what is wrong." Ratchet exclaimed. "Very handy being fully aware of your own systems."

"Try living with them for a week Ratchet, and I promise you won't feel that way afterwards."

Ratchet pulled the last bit of twisted metal out and did some minor tinkering in the mech's leg, possibly repairing torn cables or fluid lines, then removed his hands as the armor plates...shimmered and snapped back into place.

"Now, you'll have to keep your full weight off that leg for an orn or two Prowl." Ratchet said. "But knowing you and Jazz will have your hands full looking after those twins, you might not get the rest you need."

Prowl? Jazz? Twins?!

The mech got off the exam table and handed Ratchet the youngling, wincing as his oddly shaped pede hit the floor, but standing firm. A ripple of bluish light washed over his frame and all the armor changed, becoming more angled, less fluid, less rounded and smooth, becoming a recognizable Cybertronian frame, then the color shifted dramatically.

The last thing to change was the color and inner working shape of the optics, rounding out and turning steady Autobot blue.

Holy Primus, it really _was _Prowl! The tactician seemed to shake himself and several armor plates shifted until his lower leg was immobilized from knee to ankle, a living support casing. Prowl took the youngling back from Ratchet and tucked the little one against his chassis.

"Thank you for your help Ratchet." he said. "You can come out now Ironhide."

The weapons specialist swore. "Frag it, when did you know I was there?"

Prowl's calm, unruffled expression was at odds with the gentle hold he had on the youngling, but it still worked perfectly at unnerving Ironhide. "I knew you were there when you arrived." he said simply. "And no, you will not be taking custody of the twins. They have already imprinted on Jazz and I, taking them away will only stress them further."

"Jazz?" the large mech dared to ask.

"Right here." said the femme. "Before you ask, Prowl 'n I are both Metamorphs, two of only four in existence, but we do exist."

Ironhide almost glitched. "But you're a mech!"

Jaz gave him a sweet smile. "Femme. I can imitate a mech, but not actually _be _a mech. Prowler can't do the opposite, he wasn't born a morpher like I was." she said and handed her mechling to the medic. "Hold him a minute will you?"

Jaz then did the same thing Prowl had done, but adding half again her mass to become the familiar lithe form of the saboteur. Taking back the youngling she, or was it he? left the medbay with Prowl and headed down to their shared quarters, Prowl limping a bit with his ankle immobilized. Ratchet gave Ironhide a sympathetic pat on the shoulder for the poor mech's confusion.

"Ask Prime about it." Ratchet told him. "If they haven't said not to, it's alright to ask questions. Just don't bother them for a few orns, those younglings will need the quiet time."

Ironhide did so, and was shocked when Optimus explained where exactly the strange pair came from. Resigned, the old fighter simply let whatever bothered him about those two slide, they weren't normal and he shouldn't expect them to be. He still had reservations about them raising the youngling twins, but after watching them with the little ones he had to admit they knew what they were doing.

Now that he knew what to look for Ironhide noticed that Prowl and Jazz behaved rather like a bonded couple, a familiarity and closeness they didn't overtly advertise, but was there. They played off each other's strengths, Jazz was impulsive and spontaneous, Prowl was regulated and well controlled. They were both creative problem solvers, skilled fighters, and oddly enough good parental units.

Prowl gave the mechlings structure, education, and consistent rules. He wasn't as much a taskmaster with them as he was with grown soldiers, sometimes breaking his stoic mask to play with them, but he was still firm and uncompromising when it came to unwanted behaviors. Jazz, on the other hand, was all about mental and physical stimulation, keeping their processors occupied with instructive games and other things to keep their minds from dwelling on their trauma all the time. Together they made a balanced family unit for the younglings, something none of the Autobots expected.

The twins were still extremely shy of all other mechs on base, particularly the larger ones like Ironhide, for several joors. They spent a great deal of time in Prowl's office, surprising Ironhide one orn when he went to the tactician with a stack of reports from Optimus.

-xXx

Prowl was sitting at his desk as usual, working. What wasn't usual was the twins, one draped in recharge over Prowl's lap, the other sprawled across one end of the desk on his front, doodling away on a drawing pad.

Prowl looked up at the visitor. "Do you need something?"

"Uh, reports from Prime." Ironhide said, optics still focused on the younglings. "Why are they here? You're on duty."

The tactician gave only a faint grin and returned to work. "I work in an enclosed office and do mostly datawork, they won't cause any trouble." he said, shifting the mechling on his lap a bit so he wouldn't slip. "Sideswipe sleeps most of the time regardless, and Sunstreaker will not go anywhere without his brother. Granted, they may be trouble when they decide to begin exploring the base without Jazz or I, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it."

"So they really did imprint on you two?"

"Indeed they did. They latched onto me first when I found them, and because Jazz is my life partner and we have a similar spark frequency we probably feel like a bonded pair." Prowl explained. "They've both suffered some severe cranial systems damage. Until they recover they will be spending a lot of time sleeping, and they do not feel safe in recharge unless they can feel one of our sparks."

Ironhide chuckled. "So _that's _why they're so clingy, I was wondering about that." he exclaimed. "You know a lot about younglings."

This time Prowl's smile was more evident. "I am a Metamorph with a primary beast mode of a creature with extremely powerful parental instincts, there is little I can do to fight it." he chuckled. "Trust me, I will everything in my power to look after these two."

Satisfied, Ironhide left the office, turning to look back and seeing the other twin abandon his drawing and jump into Prowl's arms.

If that wasn't an image-capture moment, he didn't know what was.

-xXx

Over the joors Ironhide also noted just how well Prowl and Jazz dealt with two sensory-impaired younglings. The elder, Sunstreaker, was completely deaf in both audios and mute as a result, not that either twin had learned to speak yet anyway, while Sideswipe's optical nerve relays had been ripped apart by invasive, damaging surgeries, rendering him blind. The pair had been seized by the Decepticon researchers not long after birth and were experimented on in attempts to figure out spark bonds as twins developed. To what end, no one knew but Prowl dealt with both problems easily, relying on Sunstreaker's attentiveness to visual detail and Sideswipe's responsiveness to sound and vocal tone.

The twins were remarkably well behaved when Prowl was around, and content when with Jazz. Jazz quickly taught Sideswipe to talk, and Prowl taught Sunstreaker how to read and use a form of sign language. When they were healthy enough Ratchet began the first series of surgeries the young ones needed to repair their damaged sensory systems, and to everyone's surprise the twins had learned the other's skills through their bond, Sunstreaker was able to speak perfectly when a measure of his hearing was restored, and Sideswipe had no difficulties reading save for obvious issues with his sight. The twins relied on each other to compensate for the senses they were missing, and were rarely ever apart.

Prowl and Jazz couldn't be prouder of their charges. Jazz in particular was extremely tickled when one orn Sideswipe and Sunstreaker both called Prowl 'Papa', the look on Prowl's face was priceless, but the mech did not tell the younglings anything otherwise. The next minute he was free he barged into Prime's office and practically demanded that he be given official custody of the twins.

So it happened that Prowl adopted the twins, and said younglings couldn't have been happier.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Casualty

Vorns passed and the war continued to drag on, gaining greatly in intensity when the youth sectors, haven for younglings, caretakers, and family units, were attacked.

Optimus had been absolutely livid when news of the attack reached him. His mate and youngling, little Hotrod, were in the sector last he heard from them. Ironhide was also upset, given his own mate Chromia and youngling (though nearly a grown mech) Springer were with Ariel at the time as well.

Support forces were in the process of being arranged when even worse news arrived, news that sent Prowl into the most spark-wrenching screams of grief any mech had ever heard.

Praxus had been destroyed. The last transmission from the shining city had been from Emirate Riftguard, who died on vid-comm, bleeding out from mortal wounds.

It was then that the Autobots learned the true depth of Prowl's past. Prowl used to be the famed Stalker, heir of Praxus and son of the Emirate, witnessing his father's death as it happened on the comm was almost too much to bear.

Worse was that the Emirate's last words were for his son.

'_Be strong, my hunter, I love you.'_

Search teams were dispatched immediately, Prowl spearheading the operation, bottling up his anger and grief and pressing on in coldly logical efficiency, his emotions locked down forcefully for the sake of the rescue efforts. The city had been mostly evacuated at the time of the attack, but it there was still a high death toll. An orn passed in horrible, gruesomely vivid detail, sifting though the destruction and corpses until they made it to the mostly standing remains of the high tower of Praxus.

Prowl's old home.

The tactician walked through the apartment, finding his father's offline frame slumped over the communication console in his office, optics shuttered in death. Gently Prowl levered his father to the floor, arranging his form in resting pose with hands crossed over his spark.

The damn on his emotions broke and Prowl broke into howling sobs, clutching his father's cold body as he cried. The other mechs of his team stayed back in respect, save Jazz, who came forward and simply put an arm around her partner in silent support.

Suddenly, Prowl's breath hitched and his wings tensed. Snapping his head up he turned tear filled optics to the room beyond. "What is it Prowler?" Jazz asked in a whisper, but Prowl did not answer. Getting to his feet he dashed past the stunned mechs to his parent's recharge room.

His mother law there in a pool of energon, newly dead, but Prowl's hypersensitive wings detected life signs. Swiftbright had been carrying when she had last contacted her son, soon to deliver her second sparkling in full protoform the way Prowl had been born.

"Jazz!" Prowl cried desperately. "Jazz hurry! The sparkling is still alive!"

The field medic FirstAid rushed in with the disguised femme and set to work freeing the unborn sparkling from his dead mother's gestation chamber. It was a messy process, energon spilling everywhere, but soon Prowl held his tiny infant brother in his hands, his strong spark soothing the distressed sparkling like no one else could. The family bond formed instantly, not only between siblings, but infant and caretaker.

Jaz unsubspaced a few cleaning cloths and a thermal blanket that she normally kept on hand for the twins, helping Prowl dry off the newborn carefully and wrap him in the blanket, mindful of the little sensory wings on his back.

"What is his name Prowler?" she asked quietly in her real voice.

Prowl stared at the sparkling in his arms, tears still falling from his optics but sobbing in relief the infant was alive. "Mother...she wanted to name her next sparkling after the azure comet that circles Raicieria, _Aogiri_." he said, cradling the sparkling closer to his spark to soothe his cries. "Aogiri, the Blue Cutter...Bluestreak."

Jaz smiled. "I like it." she said, shifting back to her male voice. "C'mon Prowler, let's get you two out of here, 's not safe for little Blue."

Prowl allowed himself to be led away from his childhood home, recharging infant brother in his arms. He was escorted back to base by two teams with seven other survivors that had been recovered from the ruins. Ratchet saw to the newborn sparkling first, and after declaring Bluestreak very premature for a winged mech, he insisted that the sparkling be kept in the medbay for observation for at least two orns along with the twins, who the medic had preformed another set of surgeries on in Prowl and Jazz's absence.

"Go to your quarters Prowl, you need to rest." Ratchet ordered. "'Aid can keep an optic on the little ones while you recharge."

"But Ratchet!" Prowl protested. "My brother! The twins!"

The medic wasn't swayed, no matter how pitiful Prowl looked, reaching for the tiny infant in the incubation berth, struggling against Ironhide's powerful arms but hesitant to cause the weapon master any harm. "Take him to his quarters Ironhide." Ratchet ordered. "Tracks and Hound are doing the same with Jazz, I want those two locked in until next orn, understood?"

"Perfectly."

So it was that Ironhide hauled the distressed and exhausted tactician to his quarters, dumped him on the couch the same time the other 'escorts' did the same to Jazz and used the override lockdown code on their door.

"Recharge well you two." Ironhide leered teasingly. "If you frag each other offline, that works too."

Jazz's multilingual cursing was cut off by the door locking down, the pair's soundproofed quarters were now completely isolated.

-xXx

Prowl stalked around their room like a trapped cat, keening in distress at the separation from the young ones his instincts had claimed. Jaz didn't quite have the same intensity, but her own maternal instincts rebelled the same way.

It was also deeply embarrassing what Ironhide had said before he locked the door. Sure, neither of them were virgins per-say, but such an insinuation in front of the other mechs that did not know she was truly a female was mortifying. (Bonds between two Cybertronian mechs were not uncommon, but on Racieria intimate relations of that sort were rarer given that the femme population was far larger.)

Jaz and Prowl had interfaced, slept together, coupled, and most other means of joining in different forms, but never joined sparks. At the time the war broke out they were still building their relationship in preparation of actual bonding, but when they joined the Autobot ranks any intimacy had been put on hold.

They were almost regretting that decision right now, six vorns of celibacy coupled with the emotional stress they were both feeling intensified the need to interface, systems left dormant springing back to activation in almost unbearable waves of heat. It didn't help that as life partners their systems were in tune with one another, resonating and making the urges even more powerful. It was so strong that above all else, their instincts screamed to bond, permanently.

Not able to take it anymore Jaz reverted her form back to her mechanoid root mode, the shining silver Raicon femme, and watched as Prowl's optics instantly turned slitted gold. Staying in her male shape never triggered either of their attention in respects to interfacing, acting a good deterrent and method of keeping their control when on duty together, but it had simply been too long since Jaz had been in root mode. Prowl's frame shivered and reverted to root mode, his glossy black frame almost invisible in the half light of their quarters save for the strips of white and faintly glowing golden details. The moment his transformation was complete he pounced, catching Jaz in a forceful kiss, growling deep in his chest.

"Jazminae." he growled, nipping at her lips with sharpened teeth and ravishing her mouth. "Mine!"

It really _had_ been too long if he was being so aggressive, but she didn't mind. She returned the force with equal measure and they fought for dominance, digging fingers under armor seams to fondle sensitive wires and joints, particularly Prowl's wings.

"Ah! Jaz!" he moaned as her deft fingertips stimulated the hypersensitive appendages, making him writhe in pleasure. "Jaz _please_!"

Jaz paused half a second but that was enough for Prowl to turn the tide back in his favor. His Grylchion instincts demanding he be the dominant one here, unlike any other time he would have been perfectly happy to let her pleasure him senseless. With a powerful lunge he trapped her beneath him and ground their hips together forcefully. The sheer power of their drives drove them both to climax swiftly, opening their sparkchambers and crashing them together.

The overload was mind shattering, white hot pleasure rebounding between their joined sparks. They cried out in ecstacy as the first stage of the bond formed, and the pair blacked out.

-xXx

Prowl came back to consciousness slowly, vaguely aware of a warm feeling and a pressure in his chest, until his optics snapped open and he found himself on his and Jaz's berth. He tried to get up without disturbing her, but she was already awake.

"Aw Prowler, you're not going to leave me just yet are you?" she asked sweetly, voice low and seductive, trailing a finger across his lips while her other hand groped the underside of a wing. "Don't you want to get to the fun part love?"

Prowl's optics turned deep amber once more and a vicious smile spread across his features. "If you put it that way, how can I resist?" he whispered into her audio.

Many incredibly intense overloads and almost a full orn later they came back to their senses, the bond between them now fully developed and their libido spent in exhaustion. They curled up together to sleep and were awakened by a comm ping from Ratchet after a long rest.

:Well now, are you two ready to rejoin the world?: the medic snarked over the private line. :I hope you haven't knocked Jazz up Prowl.:

Prowl was feeling too content, sated, and comfortable to return the teasing. :Up yours Ratchet.: he said sleepily, burying his face in Jaz's neck.

:Prowler couldn't have Ratch.: Jaz said, more alert than her mate. :My reproductive protocols have never been active before.:

:I still want to see you two in the medbay as soon as possible, just in case.: Ratchet clarified. :The twins will be waking up from their surgeries and you'll want to be here.:

:Oh fine, you win this time Hatchet.: Jaz quipped, getting up and stretching and donning her Jazz armor. "Come on Prowler, time to see the evil medic."

Prowl reluctantly left their warm berth, transformed, and left their now unlocked quarters. "How long were we locked in exactly?" he asked with a yawn.

Jaz checked the door lock and whistled. "Two orns, time really flies."

"Time flies when doing what exactly?" came a voice from down the hall, and the bondmates looked up to see a rose colored femme approaching, a red and orange youngling on her hip.

"Ariel!" Jaz exclaimed, pouncing on the femme and hugging her warmly. "You're alright! Oh, is this Hotrod?"

Ariel raised an optic ridge at Jaz. "You sound just like a femme. Are you making fun of me?"

Jaz froze while Prowl laughed, she had forgotten to modulate her voice. "Whoops."

"'Whoops' is right." Prowl snickered. "Come, we can explain in the medbay ma'am, I assume you are heading there yourself."

Ariel fell into step with them, Jaz averting her optics in embarrassment at the slipup. Once in the relative privacy of the medbay Ariel turned on Jaz.

"Just who are you anyway if you're so familiar with me?" she demanded.

Jaz only smiled sheepishly and reverted to root mode.

"Jazminae?" the femme gaped. "Wait, then you're Prowl?"

"Guilty as charged ma'am." Jaz said.

"Indeed." Prowl answered, reverting as well. "When did you arrive on base?"

"A megacycle ago." Ariel said, dazed. "A Raicon contingent evacuated most of the youth sector before the Decepticons struck, Chromia, Flareup, and I asked to be brought here."

"Ah, so Delphius made good on his promise then." Prowl said, bending down onto one knee so he was level with the youngling Ariel held. "Hello there little one."

Hotrod blinked his large blue optics up at the mech, fingers in his mouth, and chirped.

"Does he talk at all?" Jaz asked.

"Not a word, but then Orion was the same when he was young."

"Was I really?" Optimus approached from Ratchet's office on the other side of the medbay and embraced his mate and child. "Thank Primus you're safe."

Hotrod let loose a string of sparkling babble at his father and chirped contentedly as he snuggled into the large mech's arms. Chuckling Optimus rubbed his son's back. "I missed you too my little one." he said, then turned his attention to Prowl and Jaz. "Ratchet tells me you two may have bonded, is it true?"

Neither of them had a hint of shame or embarrassment. Prowl only smiled. "We'll let you figure it out yourself sir."

Ratchet bustled out of his office and dragged both new bondmates to an exam table and ran multiple scans over them. "You both are low on energy, but otherwise I detect no problems, no sparkling either."

Jaz grinned. "Told you, we have complete control over our systems in that respect." she said. "How's Flareup and the twins?"

"Thank Primus for that, we have enough sparklings on base at the moment. Flare's with Ember and Firestar in my office." Ratchet huffed, shoving a large energon cube in their hands. "Drink those before you go see Sunny and Sides, alright?"

Prowl cracked his cube open and took a long draft from it. "Whew, strong stuff Ratchet." he commented. "But what about Bluestreak?"

The medic gave him a rare smile. "Stable, if a bit fussy. He'll most likely settle down once you take him back again, now drink your energon like a good mech."

Prowl did so and darted away to the recovery ward as soon as he finished his energon, making Jaz giggle at his antics. He returned with Bluestreak bundled up in a soft thermal blanket, cradled in his arms and with the oddest expression on his face.

"He's beautiful Prowler." said Jaz. "Were you this pretty as a sparkling?"

Ariel cooed at the little grey sparkling. "Ooh, he's adorable, is he yours?"

"My little brother."

Ariel made a sympathetic sound but said nothing about it. "You'll do well with him." she said. "Ironhide has been telling me all about the twins, you seem to be the only one that can control them."

"Thank you." Prowl acknowledged with a smile. "But they just know I won't take any nonsense from them, I'm more resistant to the 'innocent' act."

"Papa!"

"Jazzie!"

Two differently colored blurs slammed into Prowl and Jaz, and the twin hellions known as Sideswipe and Suntreaker clamored for their caretakers' attention. The two half grown mechlings now sported vibrant colors of red and gold, small portions of the opposite color accenting.

Sideswipe had general affinity for causing chaos and noise, a born prankster and surprisingly talented singer and musician for his age. Sunstreaker on the other hand was quiet with a strong artistic sense, but in visual arts instead. They still had their respective sensory glitches, Sides' optics and Sunny's audios, but otherwise they were happy and healthy little mechs.

"Where were you?" Sideswipe demanded. "You left us with Hatchet!"

Prowl smiled down at the youngling in apology. "I'm sorry Sideswipe, but we were needed."

Both twins pouted. "What was so important that you had to _leave_ us for?" asked Sunstreaker indignantly.

Prowl knelt down and let the twins see what he was holding. "Boys, this is Bluestreak, my little brother." he said quietly. "My home city...it was destroyed. My parents died, we were lucky to find little Blue still alive."

The twins stared at the sparkling in absolute fascination. "He's so little..."

"Are you gonna be okay Papa?" asked Sideswipe, empathetic tears in his optics as he hugged Prowl's free arm.

"Yeah, you okay?" repeated Sunstreaker.

Prowl gave them a grateful smile. "I will, in time." he said soothingly. "I'll need your help looking after Bluestreak, you boys up to it?"

The twins nodded vigorously and followed Prowl to a bench, crawling up to sit beside him. Jaz watched with a fond smile.

"He really is good with them." remarked Ariel. "You got yourself a good catch Jazminae."

"You bet, but no touching, he's mine."

The femmes shared a laugh.

-xXx

Not long after the fall of Praxus and the destruction of the Youth Sectors femmes from all over rallied to the Autobot cause under a new commander, Elita-One.

Ariel had followed her mate's footsteps and gone for a reformat, adopting a new name and title. Now Elita was leader of the Femme Contingent, a fighting force dedicated to supporting the Autobots through guerrilla warfare, sabotage, supply running, and medic training. So far the bulk of their command structure consisted of the mates of Autobot officers, femmes that had reformatted themselves for war and had the talents for the job.

They did their jobs well, and in the vorns of fighting to follow other groups arose. The Elite Guard led by Optimus' formerly estranged brother Ultra Magnus, the Wreckers formed by the ancient veteran Kup, but lead by Ironhide's son Springer, and the Black Ops, a subdivision of the Autobot forces lead by the newly instated Third in Command, Jazz.

Prowl also earned a promotion to Second in Command, and still managed to keep a handle on both his work and the four younglings he and Jazz were raising. The twins grew into young adulthood and swiftly became an efficient frontline fighting team against Decepticon Seekers in particular, and Bluestreak found his niche as a top notch sniper.

It wasn't exactly what he wanted for his three little ones, but there was little Prowl could have done.

The last youngling he was partially responsible for was Optimus' second sparkling Blaze, whom Jazz quickly dubbed Bumblebee for his sweet nature and endearing clumsiness. Blaze was given to Prowl and Jazz because the sparkling had a strong connection to the AllSpark, and would have been twice as much of a target as Hotrod would have been if the Decepticons knew he was Prime's offspring. The official story was that Bumblebee was a foundling on the ruins of a battlefield, no history or family, simply adopted by the Autobots as a whole.

Bumblebee grew to be the best scout the Autobots ever had, a triple changer reaching maturity in time to fight in the Battle of Tyger Pax, becoming the sole reason the AllSpark was kept out of Decepticon hands long enough to send it to a random quadrant of the universe through the spacebridge. Bumblebee nearly died in the battle, his wings torn apart, vocal components nearly ripped out, rendering the chipper, chatty scout mute and grounded.

From there the race was on to find the AllSpark, and Optimus Prime's command team was the leading team on the hunt. They would have asked for help from the Raicon, but their allies had problems of their own to deal with. One of their most powerful artifacts had been stolen, the Oracle Disk, a golden crystal-metal plate covered in glyphs, connected with the Matrix of Eternity and so held many of the secrets of the Time-Space continuum, extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. Aultis Prime had been incapacitated in the attack, and the leading search team, the Royal Guardsmen, had gone after the culprits, and both they and their targets have disappeared.

With troubles on all sides and constant skirmishes breaking out across the galaxies, it was imperative that both Autobots and Raicon each find what they were looking for, fast.

Interlude One

Dimensional Rift

Almost thirteen vorns since the Battle of Tyger Pax and the search for the AllSpark was still going strong, the Raicon's Oracle Disk and Prince still missing, and both Autobot and Decepticon forces spread across the known galaxies.

Shortly after the chaos of the last major battle Jazmine conceived and gave birth to her and Prowl's own sparkling, a beautiful little mech they named Axl, short for _Axucel_, which in one of the older dialects meant 'turning point of fortunes', and it fit.

What stunned everyone however was the discovery that Axl was a Metamorph like both his parents, particularly because no _male _Metamorph in the entire history of the subspecies was ever born that way. Only females were naturally born Metamorphs, and all four of the males on record were created by accident following extensive reconstruction after near fatal injuries.

But what was also a first was a mated pair of male and female Metamorphs, so practically anything could happen. While most Metamorphs were born silver and never developed any sort of coloring in their default state, little Axl quickly took on colors strikingly similar to his father's, but he had larger patches of silvery grey on his limbs and torso, accented by faintly luminous lines of soft red and white, backward swept helm fins that his elder twin brothers sported. His optics were a unique combination of his parents' optic colors, a rich, true green from a blend of his father's original blue optics and his new gold color, the green given a sparkling gemlike quality from his mother's silver.

He was a very sweet child, winning over every mech in the command structure so he was never lacking in caretakers, but he was also unique in the strange way his mental age shifted depending on the situation. When he was well protected and content Axl was the typical youngling, happy to bask in the presence of his family's spark bonds and be fussed over, but the minute he felt threatened that sweet innocence warped into active defensiveness of a mech considerably older. This anomaly was partially faulted to his Metamorph nature, since naturally born morphers tended to mature much faster than Raicerians, and partially due to genetic predisposition and happenstance.

Jazmine concluded that his mental age in Cybertronian terms was akin to a second stage youngling emotionally dependant on his family, while his Metamorph age was more an adolescent, perfectly capable of defending himself if he had the armor or weapons to do so. So, despite his incredibly young age, Axl was taught by the best and given weapons to fight with in case of emergencies.

But at least very little happened on board the space cruiser, so Axl was allowed to be the child he was and be doted upon by his parents and brothers.

Currently the _Ark_, the Autobot flagship, was cruising through Raicon territory, intent on stopping by their ally planet for a news update and possibly a bit of assistance. Most of the crew had never been to Raicieria, and were excited to see the fabled tech-organic world.

The Autobots were greeted warmly by the Raicierians, offered a supply restocking and a period of rest on their vibrant planet. They couldn't stay long, but the Autobots were happy to have their feet on solid ground for at least a short while.

Optimus met with his fellow Prime in the palace, bringing along his chief officers. Aultis was happy to see them, since he had little to be happy about these days.

"Ah Optimus, it is good to see you." said the elder mech from his place at his desk. "Forgive me for not standing to greet you properly, but I am afraid it is the standing part I cannot do at this time."

This was true, the Prime's legs were mangled beyond repair or replacement after the attack, and Aultis was forced to go about using a cane, if he could walk at all.

"My word, why haven't you had that damage repaired?" asked Optimus.

"I am old dear cousin." said Aultis. "I am beyond the age where one may have one's limbs remodeled or replaced. My time is coming to a close, there is little point of repairing me anymore, but I am not in any pain."

"I see, will Delphius return?"

That made the Prime laugh. "Without a doubt, my grandson is a tough young one, he will come back. Now, there is something that may interest you in that respect." he said, summoning an aide to his office. "Lunama will escort you, you simply must see it. Our scientists have found a most interesting anomaly when studying the rift Delphius's ship vanished through."

Intrigued, Optimus called for Perceptor and Wheeljack and the group headed down to the lab Aultus had been talking about.

Inside the massive lab that was any researcher's dream was a large apparatus that contained what could only have been a portal, like a space bridge, but it was entirely stable, not exerting any sort of gravitational pull.

"Well, that _is_ interesting, what exactly is it?" Perceptor asked with barely concealed glee.

A researcher shrugged. "Honestly we have no idea, but it could lead to a parallel reality we have yet to encounter." he reported. "We have found others, but none so similar to our own, but there is a different class of Cybertronians, and a different Cybertron. All our evidence supports that we may have created a static portal with our transwarp technology."

"Fascinating! How are you able to sustain this portal?"

And there began the rush of technobabble and the rest of the group stopped listening, Prowl and Jazz decided to take a closer look at the machine itself, the twins shadowing them.

"Interesting." Prowl mused to his bondmate, holding Axl perched on one hip. "A stable warp portal, the possibilities of it all must be endless."

"Damn straight Prowler...what's that?"

An alarm sounded and every staff member leapt to a console. "The portal's flaring! Shut it down now!" called the supervisor, but they were too late. The energy of the portal lashed out at the pair closest to it, and the tactician took an energy bolt to the chest. Prowl screamed in shock and pain, and he and little Axl vanished, the youngling ripped from him by the ripple of time-space distortion.

"_PAPA!_"

-xXx

Atmospheric entry was something all Transformers were capable of, but it was far from easy or pleasant. That thought was all Prowl had time for as he was pulled in by the planet's gravitational field, and initiated his cometary form with scant seconds to spare before he hit the atmosphere. Half blind and completely immobile in his limbs, he could only maneuver slightly to direct his landing to a less than fatal angle, streaming in a blaze of heat over a large continent and before he knew it he hit water.

Knocked senseless by the impact Prowl sank to the bottom of the lake, grateful that his mech form did not require breathing and his son was not pulled down with him, and passed out.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Cybertron?

Prowl awoke to the undeniable surroundings of a medical bay, cursing his luck and hissing in pain. He knew his body had converted at some point while he had been unconscious, and that change had left his nervous systems raw and angry at the shift.

"Great..." he groaned, ripping monitoring cables and an energon feed line out of his protoform, wincing at the stinging sensation. "At least my bad luck is consistent...Primus."

"Bad luck? You call surviving a crash landing from beyond the atmosphere bad luck?" remarked a mech entering the room, obviously a med tech. "I'd call that nothing short of miraculous!"

"Says you." Prowl snapped irritably, levering his feet off the berth, and promptly falling on his face when he overbalanced, his ankles now no longer fully articulated, his toes fused into his feet, and his wings completely gone from his frame.

"Oh slag! Are you alright?" cried the mech, flustered. "Your cerebral gyroscopes must be more damaged than we thought."

"Don't touch me!" Prowl hissed, deeply feeling the loss of his sensory wings, their nerve arrays deadened and relocated to two protruding spines on his upper shoulders. "There is nothing wrong!"

"I would disagree." said another mech, this one with the markings of a senior medic. "Our scans showed severe defects with your processor, it's a wonder you still function."

"Hack, my processor has always been segmented and it works perfectly well." Prowl retorted, slowly standing on his reshaped feet. "I was merely expecting more weight on my back and I overcompensated for it, my sensory mods are gone."

That stumped the medic, and soon Prowl was released with a clean bill of health.

Released out to a war-torn landscape of Cybertron.

XxX

Prowl wandered the unfamiliar cities of what should have been intimately familiar as his home planet. It was more than obvious that he had landed on an alternate version of his homeworld the Raicon scientists suspected that could have existed beyond their portals. Cities he knew to be leveled were moderately intact, cities that should be intact were desolate, and many other inconsistences plagued him.

What else bothered him were the draft recruiters that he had to dodge everywhere he went, having to employ much of his training to avoid getting conscripted into the war effort.

He managed to keep out of reach for some time while he investigated the planet, but he had to rest some time.

The Elite Guard squad tracking him literally caught him napping.

Exhausted as he was he could do little to resist getting hauled off to face trial before the leader of Cybertron, Ultra Magnus. Prowl had winced at the painful reminder of a comrade, the name not matching in the slightest to the face before him. He was given a choice of either going into the Stockades for draft dodging and neglecting his duties to the Autobot cause for Cybertron, or to go into an apprenticeship under the Ninja Master Yoketron, whose interest he had attracted with his successful evasion of the Guard for several months.

Safe to say, Prowl chose the Ninja.

XxX

"Young one, to be a Cyber Ninja is to be the epitome of calm." Yoketron lectured the irritable Prowl. "Anger clouds judgement, which leads to deadly mistakes."

Prowl hissed at the elder mech. "I already knew that." he spat, struggling to wrestle loose from his bonds. "But I believe I'm entitled to my moments after all this indignity, and anger can be channeled in battle with the right control. A true warrior does not shun emotion, but masters it."

Yoketron froze and looked Prowl in his visored optics. "You...are not as young as you appear."

Prowl stared back at the ninja master evenly, struggles ceasing as he at last slipped his stasis cuffs and stood.

"What is your true form?" Yoketron asked.

Prowl obliged him and his body reverted to his most natural shape.

"By Primus...who are you?"

With a formal bow of his head and a hand crossed over his spark Prowl spread his wings and introduced himself. "I am Prowl, son of Riftguard and Lord Emirate of Praxus, Second in Command and Tactical Officer of the Autobot Forces under our planetary leader Optimus Prime, descendant of Primus." he said smoothly. "I have been displaced from my timeline by an accident with a temporal warp portal, this is not my Cybertron, not my war."

Yoketron's optics softened. "I see much pain in you, son of Riftguard." he said quietly. "I understand your reluctance to join the Autobot forces led by a mech you do not know or trust."

Prowl shook his head. "It isn't that, I do know a mech named Ultra Magnus and trust him with my life, but the one that sentenced me here is not my comrade, not the brother of my Prime, not my friend." he said, a faint sob escaping him before he regained his composure. "I do not wish to sacrifice myself to a cause I have little part in, to die before I can return to my comrades...to my mate and children."

The elder Ninja gasped. "Your reasons are sound Lord Emirate, your family is worth staying alive long enough to return to them." he soothed, laying a gentle hand on Prowl's shoulder. "Should you wish, I will teach you the ways of my people and remain outside the reach of the Autobots, beyond this senseless war."

"Thank you."

XxX

After that Prowl and Yoketron formed an understanding, a bond of mutual respect, and Prowl began learning the sacred art of Cybertron Ninjutsu.

Founded hundreds of generations ago the Shi'ka-tsu Technique was a graceful art of combat founded on the principles of fluidity between offence, defense, stealth, and control of the flow of battle. To Prowl's humanoid-cultural knowledge, the Technique was a mix of the human martial arts of Karate, Akido, Judo, Kung-fu, Ninjutsu, Kenjutsu, and the art of Weapons Mastery. Shi'ka-tsu was so all encompassing of the martial arts that mastery could take decavorns of training, but Prowl had a very good head start in many of the styles that made up the Technique.

In what would be record time for a raw beginner Prowl reached the point of learning the essential technique of the style, Mind over Matter, and was introduced to the Protoform cache.

"You see Prowl, we of the Ninja Order are the guardians of the young, the defenders of the All-Spark and all those born from it's power." Yoketron explained, waving a hand at the many blank bodies stored in the vault. "Before the wars began and the All-Spark was removed from the planet, we Ninja protected and advised the leaders of Cybertron, though we have long since been forgotten when most of our numbers were decimated in the early wars and the Prime lineage broken."

"I feel for you Yoketron." Prowl sighed, gazing over the lifeless shells that may never receive a spark. "On my Cybertron the Dynasty is split in three parts, though one line founded the Empire of Raicieria while the original remained on Cybertron. Should anything happen to one branch the other will be there to support them. It is hard for me to imagine my leaders to not have such a failsafe, more so to not have All-Spark guardians born of the lineage, bonded to the Spark of Primus for it's protection and as it's Voice."

"You are fortunate then." Yoketron lamented. "Our Dynasty broke long ago at the hands of Megatron the First. His fifth successor is the one keeping our planet at war."

The pair sat in silence for a time, reflecting on the misfortune of Cybertron, when the Ninja Keep's bells rang.

Prowl darted out to gates, given Yoketron was slowing down in his old age, and was greeted by a pair of bots, the mech crying for sanctuary with a femme unconscious in his arms.

"Please! Help me!" the mech sobbed, energon bleeding from numerous wounds on both himself and the femme. "Decepticons are after us!"

Prowl ushered the distraught and exhausted mech inside and into the inner sanctuary, noting the condition of the femme.

"She is carrying?" he asked softly, laying a hand on the mech's shoulder. "Please, tell me."

"Yes! The medic said it was twins!" the mech cried. "Please help her! I don't want to lose my sparklings!"

Prowl smiled and hummed soothingly at the distressed mech, taking the femme in his arms and laying her on a soft berth. "Rest, I'll take care of them. My name is Prowl, what is yours?"

"Orion."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Parallels

If Prowl had been a less controlled and experienced mech he would have passed out in shock. The young mech before him was unnervingly like a younger version of his commander and Prime, only he was red and silver where the other had been blue and silver in his youth. The Orion before him was long-limbed and lanky, with no weapons and little armor, his facial features expressively soft and so perilously young.

Prowl swallowed his knee-jerk reaction and recovered his decorum, laying a comforting hand on the young mech's shoulder. "It will be alright, you and your mate are safe here."

"Her name is Elita."

Prowl twitched, but at least he was expecting it. "Stay here a moment, I will return with the medical supplies quickly." he said, and dashed out of the room.

"Are you alright my friend?" Yoketron asked when he saw Prowl's wide optics and stunned face.

"Optimus is here."

Those three words had the normally reserved Master's jaw hanging in disbelief.

"There are differences, but it can't be anyone else." Prowl blurted out. "I've been around Primes and Matrix Heirs enough to recognize the feel of a Descendant, and he is most certainly an Heir. His mate is also carrying twins."

"Then what in Primus' name are you doing wasting time here talking?" Yoketron gasped. "Tend to them! I will retrieve a pair of infant shells."

"Got it." Prowl said, hoisting the medical kit and dashing back to the guest room. He made Orion patch bandage the worst of his own injures while he worked on Elita and checked on her sparklings.

"Orion, your mate is very close to going into premature labor." he said seriously as he finished tending Elita's injuries. "At this stage it could easily result in a miscarriage."

Orion howled in denial."NO! It can't be!"

"And we will not let it." Prowl shot back, grabbing the younger mech before he could attack. "The sparks are fully mature and stable, but neither shell has begun developing. If she goes into labor now the sparks will separate from her own and be released without bodies, hence the term miscarriage."

"That isn't good news at all! How in the Pit are you going to stop it?!"

"We won't stop it, and should not." said Yoketron, entering the room with two small stasis pods. "We must allow her to go into labor, and shell the sparklings into these blanks. You chose a very good place to seek refuge here."

"What?"

Prowl chuckled softly. "Welcome to the Ninja Sanctuary."

XxX

As far as separation procedures go, Elita's labor went as smoothly as possible for a badly injured carrier femme. The fraternal twin sparklings were properly shelled and their bodies activated as healthy little mechs.

Elita was justifiably shocked to have her twins in her arms so soon, but was overjoyed that her offspring survived. Orion on the other hand though was simply in shock, holding his younger son close to his spark.

"You are very lucky Orion." Prowl said pleasantly, tickling the sparkling gently on his little feet. "You're a father, twice over."

Orion blinked back tears. "I...I never thought it would be so soon, Elita and I have only been bonded a short time, and then the Decepticons started hunting us..."

"Do you have any idea why?"

The young mech shook his head. "None at all, I'm just a trainee officer that used to be an architect."

"And I came from a solidly middle class family." Elita said, cooing at her sparkling. "Nothing of note there."

Prowl weighted the options in his head, and after sharing a glance with Yoketron, he turned to the new parents.

"I have an idea why, though you may not believe me."

"What is it?"

"I feel that Orion is a Descendant of the Lineage."

Prowl had only a split second to snatch the sparkling out of Orion's arms before the mech fainted.

"Well, I suppose he took that better than I thought he would."

Elita and Yoketron only laughed.

XxX

Orion and his family stayed with the Ninjas for some time, Prowl training the young Heir in the skills he'd need as Prime.

And the young mech took to it like a fish to water. Diplomacy, tactics, leadership, combat, and harnessing the wisdom and power of the Matrix of Leadership when it appeared and graced him with it's presence, all of it came naturally to him. When he had grown strong enough for Prowl's standards he returned to the Autobot Academy, under a new name for his new appearance.

Optimus Pax.

In incredibly fast time Optimus graduated from the Academy with the rank of Major, rapidly overshooting his former friend Sentinel, whose bitterness over Orion's relationship with Elita broke their friendship and made Sentinel a caustic and patronizing mech.

After graduation Optimus quickly made a name for himself, becoming a powerful fighter and taking down Decepticon after Decepticon. He was given command over a small squadron of wrecker mechs and under him they won battles worthy of note in the history books. The name of Optimus Pax was soon on the lips of nearly all of Cybertron.

Prowl was very proud of his protege, but it wasn't to last.

As the war drew to a close and Megatron and the Decepticons were banished from Cybertron, Sentinel, in his bitterness, tricked Optimus into going to a desolate planet to recover vital technology stolen by Cons.

He didn't count on Elita coming along.

Nor did he count on the femme getting caught in the explosion that destroyed the downed Decepticon ship.

Optimus was so struck with grief and the shock of his mate's bond snapping that he did not resist Sentinel's accusations of treason, of his going to the Decepticons for training, 'because only Cons use sneaky, dishonorable tactics like that'.

Ultra Magnus did not quite go along with Sentinel's plans however, and only placed Optimus in command of a small squad of patrol defense mechs that helped maintain space bridges and keep watch on Autobot territory.

Prowl joined him on the assignment, citing that as the only mech with knowledge of the lineage and Yoketron's last wish to protect the Heir and Guardian. The twins Hot Rod and Blaze joined as well, as Optimus would never suffer to leave his children behind.

The crew consisted of three other adult mechs. The veteran medic Ratchet, moved to the squad for a chance to recover from the trauma of battle in the quiet of space patrol. A former Wrecker mech called Bulkhead that was also an expert on space bridge technology. And an engineer banished from the ministry of science for reasons unknown, Wheeljack.

For several vorns the crew traveled around the edges of Autobot territory, meandering between outposts and generally taking life as it came. Prowl began training the two younglings in the art, though the younger was far more adept in it than the elder, who solidly took after their father.

Hotrod and Blaze were nothing more than well behaved hellions, if such a description was anything more than an oxymoron. They listened to orders and obeyed the rules, but were hardly quiet young mechs, they loved to race each other and start sparring matches at the drop of a hat. In short, typical youngling sub-adults.

Hotrod, or Roddi, as he preferred to be called, took strongly after Optimus in build, nature, and fighting style. His coloring was primarily red, accented with golden yellow in streaks of flame patterns, his helm sporting the same sweeping side crests his father had. He preferred Optimus' strong, direct fighting style and was an outspoken and direct mech, always ready to speak his mind.

Blaze, on the other hand, took after Elita instead. With long limbs and a slim body he was built for speed and grace, perfect for the Shi'ka-tsu art. Though he was the same bright gold as his mother, he did not have her blue accents and developed solid black details from Prowl's influence. Like Elita, he had a temper, easily provoked and more than ready to sass back at authority, but he was still young and reckless and would be so for a while yet.

Neither Prowl or Optimus could tell yet which of the twins was the Matrix Heir and which was the All-Spark Guardian, but given how a few vorns into their wanderings, the pair of them began urging their path towards one of the most desolate regions, at least one was in synch with the All-Spark.

None of them counted on actually finding it in the wreckage of a inoperable Space Bridge.

Or the space battle with Megatron, resulting in a crash landing on an uncharted but inhabited planet.

Prowl was now certain that his luck, while terrible, was truly consistent as he and the rest of the crew fell into emergency stasis.


End file.
